Day 1 -Citerna

Hello everyone, I’m glad to announce that I’m here in Citerna, Italy and am somewhat recovered from two full days without sleep! The trip over was a little interesting. Our Memphis to Amsterdam flight was delayed an hour because they couldn’t start the 2^nd engine on the plane and had to partially take it apart to start it manually. This caused a few people inside to panic and demand that the plane taxi back to the terminal so they could get off! The pilot had to come back and personally tell them that everything was safe and the plane was fine. In the early morning we flew over beautiful Great Britain. Even though we were 38,000 feet up, the sky was perfectly cloudless and you could see all the pastureland. Absolutely stunning! I and three others were picked up at the airport by Melissa, a girl in the church from southern Italy who is taking an English class in college. She was very nice, but she had never been to Rome or Citerna, so we spent three hours trying to get out of Rome, and then find our hotel once we reached Citerna. What should have been a three hour bus ride from Rome to Citerna took over six hours! But we had fun and I got to see a “preview” of Rome before all the others did!

Today we had our first classes and got to meet each other. I toured all of Citerna (which might be all of 10-15 acres!) and took plenty of pictures. Tonight we all went to the town square and had a crazy good gelato (ice cream boosted with a gigantic helping of butter) and talked with some of the locals. Citerna is a town of about 400 and it seemed that nearly all of them were in the square talking with each other, eating at the town’s one restaurant, and just having great fun. It reminded me of some little English village where everyone is merry and gets along. I talked for about an hour with a man named Daniel who knew all about American history (he’s a Revolutionary War buff) but he also told a group of us the history of Citerna. It was built in the 12^th century by friars and shortly thereafter became a fortress for the Florentine kingdom. The Vatican and Florentine kingdom spent years and years fighting over the border, and Citerna was a key fortress the marked the Florentine boundary and prevented a Papal invasion for many years. Eventually, however, the pope’s forces succeeded in conquering the town and put many people to death. The friars kept a written history of the outrages committed against the citizens, detailing every citizen who was put to death or harmed in any other way. Even though it is 800 years later, the town still keeps a written log of any offenses that are committed against citizens in the town. If someone steals money from their fellow townsman, they record it. If anyone abuses or kills or does anything wrong in the town, it is written down as a permanent testament against the perpetrator. Daniel explained this as one main reason why crime is non-existent in Citerna. In the city’s town hall, you can go and view the criminal records, even the ones originally written by the friars! Talk about your naming living in infamy. In Citerna, we can literally know the name and crime that a person committed nearly eight centuries ago!I took a few pictures of the town walls and other places inside. The walls are the original walls that for so many years protected against Papal invasion!