magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

finally made it into gubbio this morning. it was warmer today and so nice just to walk around the city. brought my binoculars, which was fun. didn't do any sketching or photographing, but did a lot of looking. ran into irine and gabriel and we walked around together for a while, exchanging the particulars of each of our situations.

i wish i could have stayed in the city all day, taken the funivia (a little two person gondola) up to the park and basilica on top of the mountain, or sketched the ancient roman theatre at the outskirts of the old town. but i had to catch the one-forty bus back to ponte calcara, as i'm not sure there are any others that come this far out. debora (the daughter, twenty-one) had told me that the bus would pass through scheggia, only about two kilometers away, but then head out in a long loop before making its last stop here. but after heading five kilometers in the opposite direction the driver indicated what i took to mean that we were at the end of the line and the rest of the junior high aged kids who make up almost the totality of passengers on these busses, they're public transportation but serve also as school busses, filtered off. i was ready to get off too, resign myself to a long walk or a call for help to my homestay family, but the driver seemed concerned and tried to understand from my poor italian (and my forgetting of the town's exact name) where i had thought i would end up.

and finally, "ah, ponta calcara." which is apparently the true last stop, simply because that's where the the driver himself lives. but generally all the school kids have gotten off before then.

disaster averted.

i would like to start getting up in the mornings and taking the early, seven-something, bus into gubbio to spend more time in the city. but waking up that early without an alarm clock is towards the impossible end of difficult.

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today went pretty well. the only really awkward moment came when they asked me about my religion, was i catholic or protestant? which is about as far as their understanding of the matter could go. i got the feeling that protestant would not exactly be approved of, but within their realm of experience. how could i say that depending on my frame of mind i fall somewhere between pantheist, pagan, and agnostic? that i've flirted with the idea of zen buddhism? so i said my mom's protestant, and my dad's jewish (never mind that neither is really practising) and even that just left kind of blank expressions on their faces. "so you don't go to church? what do you do?" the best i could come up with was "it's complicated."