A Brush with Death, Danger in Retrospect

So I was feeling bummy today and even though the whole of the school decided to go out to town I said "Nah, I'm going to sit in tonight." But then I just felt like not being that person who sulks in their confines when right outside their window is the Italian dream. Which of course means that I ended up going and I decided if I did I would enjoy myself to the fullest. 

We went out to the city and decided to get some real Italian Gelato, and it was really really good! I had Melone gelato, which by the way non Italian speakers, means MELON! Well anyway, after that we just kinda split up and I was with a couple of people, 5 of us, Julian, Cayenne who is from NY, and Mark and Cheryl who are pastors from the East Coast but sooo young and beautiful at heart, they are married and on the program as fellowships not students through the UCI program. 

But anyway we decide to take a route that Mark usually runs in the morning he found it, which is by a HUGE cemetery where there are these beautifully lit crypts. On my first night here we were looking out at the horizon at night and saw what looked like a large group of stone walls filled with lights. It looked like what a lit building in the city might look back in LA from a distance. It was those crypts which were BEAUTIFUL. They say there are more people buried there than the living population of Arezzo. 

It was erie to look over the wall and see all those spaces, there were thousands of windows for each crypt with memorials inside and it was breath taking, but also almost intrusive. I felt a strange security being there, but then again also the presence was all around me so it was a bit scary too. So we continue the walk around the cemetery and we squeeze through fences and follow graveled paths and there is no light but mine and Cayenne's flashlights, which we decided to bring on a whim on the way out (fate... I think so). And we get back to the main road and are just in awe by what we just walked through. 

When we arrive back at the villa Mark and Cheryl go to the Annex where they are staying and we head for our resident's hall. On the outside patio Jesse, the Academics coord is sitting with our teacher and the old student life coordinator Angelica, and we tell them where we have been. Jesse give us a look and says "NEVER, go to the cemetery at night!" And we all stare at each other in a little bit of fear.

"That area is where Drug Dealers, Addicts and Prostitutes sleep at night...and especially in flip flops," she says, "there could be needles and things on those paths you walked." 

I felt my stomach turn.

"Just don't go there at night again, its EXTREMELY dangerous."

We all turn to enter the resident's hall with our jaws dropped and get a little creeped out when looking at it in retrospect. Thank goodness we got back safe, but brush with Death... yes. 

That was the adventure I took to escape my homesickness. Amazing no?