Umbria Jazz

My last week in Perugia approached way too quickly and was truly the busiest and most fun week of them all! We had all of our exams, presentations and group projects due in a matter of days, which of course made it busy. On Friday night we had our end-of-program dinner with all the professors and students; and all the classes were able to present their projects. It was quite humorous. Some classes sang songs, others put on little skits. Our classroom took some of the famous paintings done by Perugino and superimposed our images over them as a joke. The funniest image was Perugino’s self-portrait recreated by Michael. Below are the photos so go ahead and have a good laugh at our silliness. Sadly, we had to say goodbye to our Professoressa. We had decided to buy her flowers as a thank you for all that she had done and she started to cry a little. She was the best and I know we will all miss her.

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Photo with Professoressa
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Photos of superimposed images

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On a happy note, our last week happened to be the beginning of Umbria Jazz, an annual music festival in Perugia that is widely famous in Italy. This year, even Lady Gaga performed, which just goes to show how big this festival gets in quaint little Perugia. Most students had to leave before being able to participate in the jazz festival, but Paola and I decided that we were going to stay an extra day and go to whatever big concert was happening on Saturday night! Since Saturday was our last day in Perugia, we decided to make the most of it! The day started out with a nice relaxing time at the pool with Irene and Barbara, an afternoon of final Perugian souvenir shopping, and one last dinner before the concert.

Saturday night’s concert unfortunately wasn’t Lady Gaga, but an Italian rock band called Subsonica. However, they ended up being just as awesome and, in my opinion, are the Italian version of Maroon 5. (Sorry to all those die-hard Maroon 5 fans who think that no one can compare to Adam Levine.) Subsonica put on a really great show, and Paola and I got really into the music even if we walked into the stadium having almost no clue what they would be like. My favorite song of the concert was “Nuova Ossessione” which means “New Obsession” in English. Below is my video from the concert and also the youtube version of my new favorite song for you all to take a listen to!

Since Subsonica and most other artists/bands that performed at Umbria Jazz are not jazz at all, most dedicated a small part of their show to the jazz genre. About three-fourths through the Subsonica concert, the band changed out of their hipster/rock clothing and into jazzy tuxedos. The rest of the concert was a jazzy rock twist, which was really interesting and different. It was nice to see the performers do something special and probably out of their comfort zone to contribute to the tradition of Umbria Jazz.

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Umbria Jazz photo

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Photo of Paola and I

After the concert the streets were filled with people from all over Italy and probably the world! It was strange to see the small town center of Perugia so crowded, but Paola and I spent the rest of the evening strolling around, listening to the music at the free stages, and running into locals we knew. It was probably the best way to spend our last night in Perugia and say goodbye to a city we loved. Honestly, we were so busy having fun we didn’t have time to be sad that we were leaving the next day. That’s how I would like to live most of my life; being happy and grateful for the present and not worrying too much about what may happen in the future. I think I just made my own quote right there, so I will contently end on that this time.