Shepherds and Beaches

The past 4 days since my last have been quite the adventure. Beginning from Wednesday night, we all had a lot of fun at the bar. We went to a place called Republik where they were playing lots of American rock and roll songs. It was pretty fun just hanging back, chilling with the crew and listening to some good old rock n' roll knowing that I could sleep in late the next morning, which I did. Class didn't start until 2 so, I woke up just before 1 finally getting that full night of sleep Id been longing for awhile. Class Thursday turned out to pretty pretty interesting. We had a guest speaker, Prof. Aldo Muntoni who shared with us his research on hydrogen, methane, and alternative energy generation. The material was really interesting got both my chemistry and engineering mind to geek out a little. These renewable sources still don't appear to be viable in current market yet, but thinking about the various processes and technicalities with each is still just really cool!

After class I took a small detour up to the top of the hill again. (I love the view there, one of my favorites from the trip still) I finally have pictures of it to show, though its too bad I cant take panorama pictures with my camera because my pictures just don't do it justice. I also took a sort of back alley root back home which was a new and interesting perspective of the city. The street was really tight and the buildings looked a bit dark and desolate, yet only one street away was a brighter area with sunshine and shops.

View from the top of the hill.

View from the hill of one place I went walking through the day prior.

Back streets.

Friday morning we departed for Nuoro to have lunch with some shepherds in the mountains. Though this group of shepherds wasn't quite what we were all expecting because they catered to tourist groups such as ourselves, it was still loads of fun and a very cultural experience. We all sat on long benches facing each other with a big group of other older people. They served us bread, cheese, traditional meets, sheep, and roast piglet along with plenty of wine. Everyone got a bit on the tipsy side, especially the other group of older Italians. The Italian women got especially drunk and even started hitting on us American dudes. Eli was especially getting cougared by and much older Italian woman who had far more then her fair share of wine. It was quite entertaining to watch.

Food in the shade.

After, there was a small vocal performance from some of the shepherds. I'm not sure whether to call it singing or yodeling or lot because it was very strange, but it sounded really cool! It was a deep and throaty sort of chorus between 3 men and a 4th man chanting.

Following this we visited a small local town in the mountains. This town had intricate paintings on almost every wall. Though I couldn't understand most of the words that accompanied each painting, I was well aware of the political connotation that they had.

After mulling about here for awhile taking pictures of the street art, we got back on the bus and headed towards Hotel Enis Monte Maccione. It was right at the base of a mountain so we went hiking up it to try and catch the view. After taking a wrong path, we found our way back and up to the top of a certain rocky outcrop and the view was stunning. Once again, pictures have a hard time capturing the scene, but ti was breath taking. However, the sun was setting making the horizon line a bit hard to see so we opted to get up early the next morning to hike back up the mountain before the bus left.

Matt with the cutest wild kitten we found at the hotel.

Unfortunately I only took video from the top of the mountain so here are my pictures of the view from the hotel balcony just after sunset.

So a bunch of us got up at 5 o'clock and hightailed it to the top for sunrise. Though we could actually see the sunrise because of a mountain in the way, we did see the sun light up the valley and the sky which was even more breath taking then the view the evening before.

When we finally got on the bus, we headed for the Gulf of Orosei. We took a boat trip out and toured through a a very old cave system filled with stalagmites and stalactites before being taken to a few different beaches that practically carved out of the cliff face.

Here are just a few pictures from the boat ride.

The only feasible way to get to them was by boat. The beach was a lot of fun and the water was a beautiful turquoise color. After a day in the sun though, I got a bit burned. I was thankful when we got home after the 3 and a half hour bus ride. Twas a very exhausting day/weekend, and I was ready to crash. 

This next week now has a ton of work in store for us. Today is blog day, Tuesday we have to turn in our cultural reflection, Thursday is our second big project, and Friday is our big exam for the trip. So back to work now, ciao!