Cortona

I ran out of time in my last post to adequately describe the town I'm living in. Cortona is where "Under the Tuscan Sun" was filmed, to give you an idea of how pretty it is, and my dorm (the Kehoe Center) and the other classroom building (Severini) are near the top of the hill. At the very top is an Etruscan fortress-turned-art-gallery-sometimes, then below that is la chiesa di Santa Margherita, patron saint of Cortona. She started a hospital in the thirteenth century, and her body is displayed in a lovely glass case at the front of her church. The next thing you run into when you walk down the hill is the dorm, then Severini (I'm there right now!), then the town springs up as you hit apartment buildings and windy roads with little gardens tucked away everywhere. At the center of town (which is by no means at the bottom of the hill), there is Piazza della Reppublica and Piazza Signorelli, where most of the grocery shopping and cappuccino drinking happens.

Molesini's is the main grocery store that I visit every few days, and it's hard to describe if you don't understand some basic things about Italian stores:

Rule #1: There are no supermarkets. There are frutterias, meat shops, chocolate shops, hardware stores, and pharmacies. But heaven help you if you want to find shampoo, because you'll end up looking in the pharmacy and the hardware store (which sells percolators and washcloths next to the drill bits) before you find a lingerie shop that sells makeup and hair products.

Rule #2: Everything is tiny. It's kind of refreshing, but sometimes it makes things harder to find.

Rule #3: Nothing is organized. Going grocery shopping is like treasure hunting, or thrift store shopping. This is probably because stores only keep two or three items of one kind stocked at a time. Example: I bought my hair dryer at the hardware store, and I knew which one to get because it was the only one there.

So anyway, Molesini's is the closest thing to a supermarket we have. They make great panini (I got one yesterday with tuna, pesto, mozzarella, and tomato), and there is an entire shelf devoted to chocolate bars.

Speaking of chocolate, there is one gelato shop in Cortona and it just opened! It's called Snoopy's; I haven't been yet, but I'll keep you updated. And of course there's Cocoa Cortona.

I realize I made it sound like all I do is shop for food - not true! I went yesterday, though, because I needed soap and blood oranges, so it was on my mind.