Vita Italiano: Assisi

Wednesday, we traveled by bus to the city of Assisi. Assisi is a province of Perugia and is famous as the home of Saint Francis--founder of the Franciscan order of the monks. The architecture is unified through the use of pink limestone as a building material, which I really liked. We visited the San Francesco and then the Santa Chiara. We were not able to take pictures in either of these places. Our lunch was pre-arranged for us at Albergo Ristorante La Rocca. Here, they served us so much food. We started off with bread followed by a heaping spoonful of pasta. The servers loaded our plates instead of doing it ourselves so we didn't really have any portion control and they were very eager to refill your plate once you looked done. Then came the main course of chicken with ham and cheese inside, covered with a cheesy, cream sauce and roasted potatoes. They finished the meal by serving us a bowl of fruit just like at the study center. At one point in the day, during a tour break, a man dressed like a monk was singing and chanting "assisi..ASSISI" and some other Italian phrases. After this, he knelt on the ground for a minute and then silently laid face down on the ground for at least 2-3 minutes before he got back up and just kept walking like nothing happened. Whenever I think of Assisi I will hear him chanting "ah-ssi-si...AH-SSI-SI". Someone said he may have been a wanna-be Franciscan Monk. I should have taken a video but I think I was way too distracted.