Trenta Giorni di Eccellenza

30 days of Excellence

30 days of Excellence is Brian’s way of testing, giving experience, and challenging us, the interns. So for 30 separate days we have a challenge, some may be 20 minutes, some take hours. We do not know what is coming up next, but for several of them we have to work together and collaborate.

Day 1 – We were to board a bus for the first time. To sit down in separate places and make observations, and write them down in our notebooks.

Day 2 – We were told to go to “The Lighthouse”. Without any information, without knowing the Italian word for lighthouse, what area it was in, was it next to the coast, on a hill, which side of the city it was on. We stood and deliberated for about 10 minutes. And we decided to go to a library or book store and ask for an Italian-English Dictionary, and we found the word for lighthouse, “Faro”. So we asked the bookstore owner where it the lighthouse was, (“Dove Il Faro?”). And he told us it was near the “Duomo” which Kelley apparently knew where and what it was. So we asked a lady who told us that the ¼ bus would not take us there. So we got on the 1/5 which she said would take us there, but it took us to the port and then went in the opposite direction. So we got off at the next stop and started the long journey near the duomo, we passed Tadrian’s Arch where the fellas met at earlier. And we went up a road that was a series of long switchbacks up the hill, more trekking and we made it near the duomo. Then we didn’t see anything like a lighthouse so we asked a lady. And she gave us, close, but wrong directions, and we followed them. We went up to the highest looking tower and realized that It was a bell tower. So we stopped and thought for a minute and I surveyed the area, and noticed what was on the highest point, near the sea and thought that it had to be it. So we asked a lady, and she apparently spoke really good English and told us here husband is up at the light house right now. Then she looked out and waved at a guy that was about a half mile away coming down a slope. So we know knew where it was. So we started the journey there. We had passed the entrance to the light house several times. We went up and found that the old lighthouse no longer used and that it was the only remaining tower from a fort built for the pope at one time about 200 years ago. The people had torn the whole thing down and left only that one tower and a few ground level parts. We saw the modern lighthouse, it wasn’t hard to spot when we got up that high, tall, silver, with a huge lightbulb in the middle of the top room. So we found brian, got some water and then headed down his way. His way was better and led down the opposite way. We realized the path went far out and straight until we noticed somethings familiar near the path.The path was right behind a college, the Marche Regional Political College. We started three blocks from the college, it was on the coastal side of Piazza Roma and at one point were standing right in front of the college reading the title. It was a long one, but we got a good view, a good workout, and a good lesson from it.

Day 3 – We were lead by Brian onto a bus that we never ride and went out to a high point on the Northern hill in small park, it had an overlook of the whole city, there we looked out and then we all prayed for the city for a while.

Day 4 – We were told to go sit out on “Viale Della Vittorio” and observe people for an hour and write down our observations. It started to rain so we went back to Marcus for a while and went out later for an hour before we were supposed to be at La Via to help with English Lessons, and we made our observations. I had forgot my pens, so I was making mental notes when all of a sudden some Jehovah’s Witnesses came up and started talking to me, I had a very simple conversation with them in Italian, and then one of them asked if I spoke English and if I know Jesus. I said in Italian that I do know and follow him and I study the bible at OCC in the states. Then I realized that I should ask for a pen, so he let me have a pen. I ran into them later so I was able to return the pen to them.