Hope You Like Dem Cartoline

So all of my euros are going to coffee, wine, and postage. And truly, not even very much wine. The thing about cappuccini is that they're awesome here. AWESOME. Thus, we ventrue out to get them generally more than once a day. It doesn't seem expensive, since they're generally between 1 and 1 and a half euros, but that shit adds up. Now the postage, that's not going to stop because I like sending postcards and letters, however, it costs 1,60 to send them to the states. So appreciate it (even though I doubt anyone had gotten anything yet, since I'm guessing it'll take a while. Things happen slowly here).
Anyways, the last couple of days have been pleasant, but nothing that I MUST BLOG ABOUT. Yesterday after lunch I went to a cafe that has internet with Rachel and Kate, however this is less exciting for me since I got lucky and have wi-fi in my house, which isn't super common around here. But it was nice, I drank EVEN MORE coffee and wrote some letters and whatnot and relaxed until it was time to go home for dinner.
Today we had class (only after stopping for coffee, of course), and then wandered around Siena some more, poking around various places. It's still lovely to walk around and enjoy everything, but we're pretty much seen what there is to see, so now it's less exciting and more pleasant and relaxing. Plus we stopped for coffee.

I don't have and cool pictures from any of these ventures, so I will make you all laugh by showing the worst picture of me ever taken ever. Taken by myself, of course. Enjoy:

SEXY.

Slanty!

We took a day trip to  Pisa today!

Look it leans!

We had to start out really early because, as I mentioned, we accidentally bought bus tickets for seven am... at least we're practicing our Italian. The bus dropped us off at the airport, though, so then we had the adventure of finding our way from the there to the Piazza Dei Miracoli, where all the stuff to see is. We took a train to Pisa Centrale, got off, and eventually figured out which bus to take to get there. Aside from a few moments of guess work, that all actually went rather smoothly.
Getting to the piazza was exciting, especially our first glimpse of the tower (Rachel saw it first but I saw it best)! It was almost bizarre to be somewhere so iconic, as the leaning tower of Pisa is what many Americans think of as quintessential Italy (and hey, it really does lean). What I found even more surprising is how little credit is given to the other cool (more interesting) things in the Piazza: there's the Batistry, the Duomo, the Campo Santo, and two cool museums, and between all of them, LOTS of art (mostly of Jesus and Mary, of course). We bought the pass to go to all of these things as well as a ticket to climb the tower, so it was a full day of walking.
We did the tower first, which turned out to be a lot of fun. I was skeptical at first as to whether it would be worth the price, but I'm glad everyone wanted to do it. Walking up the marble stairs, it was strange to think how many people had done that very thing because the steps were so worn down  in the middle from all the different feet and all the friction over the years that there were large dips in the stairs! At the top, we had a great view and a great time taking pictures. Also, there are bells up there, which no ever told me. But I guess it was meant to be a bell tower. People just don't think that's as interesting as the fact that it's diagonal, I suppose. But I think bells are cool.  They were big and rusty green, and one had Jesus on it (I don't remember what the others had though).

At the top of the tower

Next we saw the Baptistry, which is big and round and houses an impressive pulpit sculpted by Nicola Pisano. It's always a bit odd for me to be in these Christian places because I can never keep track of which sects do what and so it takes me a while to firgure out exactly what everything is for.  I liked it though, the inside had the same stripped patten as the Duomo in Siena, although we aren't entirely sure what significance there is to that, I'll have to remember to look into it. When we were wandering around on the balcony admiring the stained glass a man who I suppose worked there stepped out into the middle of the room and started singing loudly and letting it echo and then harmonizing with his own voice. It was a solo duet! Very cool to hear, and Karen said it was meant to show off the building's acoustics. I can imagine what it would sound like with a whole choir.

Inside the Campo Santo

Second was the Campo Santo, which has some tombs and what not but most importantly had frescoes, lots and lots of frescoes. Except most (if not all) of these were missing parts because the Campo was bombed during WWII by the Americans since Italy was held by the Nazi's in 1944. The story goes that the Americans though that the leaning ower may have been full of weapons and used as observation, so they were supposed to bomb that, the but the pilot saw it ans was all, "hell no!" so he bombed the Campo instead. I'm glad that he spared the tower, but I can't imagine bombing anything in the Piazza, it's all so gorgeous. My first though when I heard about the bombing was "who would be so mean as to destory such lovely art?" but I guess it was us. I have to admit, it's so easy to assume that my side is always the good side (which technically it was, since they were fighting the Nazis), but I suppose that's the design of the public school education. Ler's teach patriotism! It's just odd to think that WE destroyed it. Not necessarily on purpose, but still. Some frescoes have been somewhat restored (it turns out that they can peel those things right off the wall), but many of them are just completely gone. It's funny to think that those medieval frescoes lasted through centuries just to be bombed off the walls.

I thought this statue was pretty (in the Campo Santo)

Next was the Duomo, the giant medieval cathedral. The inside of this was incredible, but so overwhelming! There were things to see absolutely everywhere: paintings, mosaics, sculptures, not the mention the building itself. My favorite were the mosaics, they were absolutely breathtaking. There was one huge one of Jesus, one of Mary, and both were huge and lovely and gold that looked absolutely brilliant when the light hit it. There was so much more in there but I can barely remember it all there was so much to look at!

More Campo Santo- the squares are all graves, ex-frescoes on the wall

After the Duomo we headed to the Sinop Mueseum, whcih was nice and small and housed the outline drawings of the frescoes from the Campto Santo, which they recovered after the bombing. This was fin to see, but I don't really have much to say about it.
Finally we made it to the last museum, the Muse dell'Opera del Duomo. This had some stuff about the other buildings and some other cool art and stuff, including drawings of the frescoes from before they were destroyed, which were cool to see, but for the most part nothing I found particularly special, but then, that could just be because it was the last stop of a long day.

Climbing the tower!

Baptisry in back, Duomo in the middle and the leaning tower last

Me and the bells no one told me about

View from the tower

Once we were done with the museums we found a bar for a glass of wine before catching a train back to Siena. We got dinner in Centro, which was fun and of course took forever. Delicious, though, I had barley soup followed by lamb and artichoke fritto. I have to say,  going to Pisa made me really appreciate Siena. The Piazza dei Miracoli was really cool, but the rest of Pisa was unimpressive. The streets were either overly touristy or kind of a dump, and it made me very aware of being an American tourist, which is fair but unpleasant. One of the big differences is that in Siena, the touristy parts are actually used by the locals-the piazza del Campo and the surrounding streets. It's easy to feel integrated. Also, this happens in Siena to but more so in Pisa: I say some thing in perfectly good Italian and get answered in English. I understand that most of the time people are trying to be helpful, and really are very nice, but I want to learn Italian damn it! Ah well, I usually just keep speaking Italian anyways.

Baptistery and Duomo from the top of the Tower

My Host Family Noticed My Italian Improved!

I'm going to try to keep this brief because I'm waking up SUPER early tomorrow morning to go to Pisa! Long story short, we went to get train tickets for 9 am tomorrow morning and ended up with bus tickets for 7am. Oh Italia. Allora. 

Me and the Duomo,

Anyways, today we had school, or course, but after lunch instead of learning grammar we got to go to a museum! One of the many in Siena, this is called Santa Maria Della Scala. It was actually a functioning hospital until fairly recently (one of the program directors was born in it), but the art is incredible. It has frescos, grand cathederal-esque rooms (i'm not sure what the actual correct term would be, but essential church rooms), and if you go way downstairs you get to an archeological site-turned-museum. My favortite was definately the frescoes though, most of which I believe are parts of the story of the hospital.

The Fresco!

The one I liked the best was called "Il pontefice Celestino III concede privilegi di autonomia all'ospedale," which translates to Celestino III gives the hospital autonomic privileges.


I don't really know the history beyond the title, and don't have the energy to look into to it now, but hopefully I will soon.

Simon and Rachel being awesome tourists in front of the museum

After that the rest of the day was basically what's becoming routine; coffee with friends, home for dinner, out on the town after. Again, I have to get up early so I'm not going to go into detail, but I had a fun time!

Our after school feast

Long, long days.

Okay so last night I was not quite up for posting, so I shall attempt to recall the day. I did make brief notes though, and the first thing I have written in Italian class. Hmmm.. I don't remember anything in particular about that, except that it was long and exhausting. I like my teacher a lot, her name is Fiora and she's very nice, but it's still a lot of Italian every day.
For lunch ( which our host mommies all pack for us, SCORE) I usually get pasta from the night before which  is cold, but still good. However, we have a space heater in our classroom (one of the few heat sources), so I decided to let my pasta chill on that to warm up! It worked, except that I got greedy with the heat and halfway through eating it the container fell off of the heater! Sad news. But it was okay, because I got a panino and some coffee after class anyways.
After lunch, we had to do this treasure hunt sort of excersize where we had to run around the city and find out certain information, except that some of the questions were trick questions. Our group didvided us up into smaller sub sections, and I was with my friend Maya, and we had two tasks. The first was pretty easy, just finding out how much a kilo of ravioli fresche cost at a certain store, but the second one was almost impossible! We were told to find the prices of different beverages at a certain cafe, but it turned out the cafe had closed along time ago! The problem was, when we asked people for directions they recognized the name and could give us the general direction but no one knew exactly where it was! Of course, once we found out it had closed it made total sense, but we were very flustered, until finally someone who had apparently been running his store on Via Di Citta gave us the right information.
After that, I met up with Simon and Rachel, and we got one euro slices of Pizza, mmmm... It was good, but one thing about some of the sausage here is that it really tastes like dead animal to me. I know it's supposed to be 'authentic' tasting, and some of it I do like, but some is just a little to strong in a favor I can only describe as dead something or other flavor. Bo. But yes, there wasn't really anywhere good to sit so we ended up having a mini picnic in the doorway of the shop next store, since it was closed for lunch anyways (most stores here close between approximately 1 and 3, give or take).

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After the pizza we did a bit of shopping, later to be joined by Kate. I almost bought boots but didn't, Rachel got a sweater, and I had fun dressing up Simon like a Ken doll, and he ended up getting a sweet lavender sweater (both got them for 9 euros, because of i saldi in geniao). I saw lots of things (especially shoes!) that I liked that were on sale for really good prices, but I tried to hold out for things that I really LOVED since I knew I'd have plenty of opportunities to waste euros. I figure that even if I'm buying things that I truly do like and will wear I need to be careful because I will have SO many options and I'd rather come home with a few things I love than lots of things I like (also because I don't want to drag that much crap home to the States).
After denying many purchases, though, I did end up going for a lovely new leather bag that was on sale for only 25 euros! It's great because it's nicer than my ratty backpack (which I still love, don't get me wrong), and my tiny purses. Huzzah!

Then we found a cafe and split a bottle of wine between the four of us, which is always fun and relaxing at the end of the day.
 At the end of the day I ended up coming home on the same bus as Julia, which was convenient. However, when we got home there seemed to be a good amount of Italian shouting, which we didn't quite understand. We had been warned that this was not an uncommon form of communication in Italian homes, but we hadn't heard any yet so we weren't sure, plus things seemed a bit tense at dinner, but that could have just been our interpretation. Who knows, Italian seem to be a bit all over the place.
Later that night we ended up going out with some friends from the program, which is always fun. One of the Italian league soccer games was on, which I watch sometime with my host family,  and people in bar got really into when it went into overtime one on one shots! When going out, I like to have a couple glasses of wine because it's cheap and it tends to be very easy not to overdo it. Also, the last bus that goes to the stop I want comes at 12:20, which so far is a great time for me; I'm still having fun by the time I leave so I don't get tired out being out and waiting around to leave, it's free, and it's a good excuse to duck out on week nights (or weekends) without feeling like I'm leaving to early.

Now, let's see, what happened today. We had our weekly LC meeting with Karen (the LC adviser) and just chatted and checked in. We also talked a little about this weekend, which is going to be a free weekend but I think a bunch of us are planning on hopping on a train with Karen for a day trip to Pisa!
Then we had a billion hours of class (1-6pm), and afterward a few girls and I grabbed a much needed espresso.
Came home for dinner, had homemade pesto (yay!) and then went out on the town again, which was the same deal with the 12:20 bus. I just got back, so I'm rather exhausted, so I'm going to end this now and if I think of anything else worth while from today I'll mention it a domani.

Cooking School!

Today we had a cooking lesson at the scuola di cucina next to my school at Fontabranda. The first awesome thing about the cooking school was that it was super warm inside, which is a big deal for Italy. It's always cold here, or at least it will be until the spring.

When we first got there they had us put on sweet aprons, which I have to say we looked pretty cool in.
The lesson began with papa di pomedoro, which is a tomato-y soup that's meant to use up old bread that's gone stale. Lella, the instructor (who luckily had a translator) told us that it's important to us tuscan bread, first because of the lack of salt thing, and second because it's a traditional Tuscan recipe so of COURSE you have to use Tuscan bread. We didn't actually get to do any of the work on this ourselves, but watching it was still cool.

Next we made pasta! The kind we made originated in Siena, it's called pici and is super thick. It was fun to make, but the pasta was a little to thick and doughy for me, I'm more of a thin pasta girl.
Last, for dessert we made cenci for dessert, which is a fried crispy dessert that's made for Carnavale season. That turned out to be really good.

I think the soup was my favorite, and the sauce on the pasta was good but we didn't help make that really.

Papa Pomedori!

Pici (di Siena)

Cenci (which literally translates to "rags")










After that we just had class, so it was pretty unexciting. At leas we got some cute pictures of us cooking though! 

If Chinese food in America is Americanized, How Do They Italianize it in Italy?

Not a whole lot to report today, since it was just school and nothing special. Intensive Italian is indeed intense; not that it's to hard, but five hours a day is quite a lot. Today I was so tired that when Fiora (our teacher) had us spell our last names aloud using the Italian alphabet I lost track of the E's and ended up spelling "Boedeckeder," which, in all fairness, has a nice ring to it, I think it almost sounds French. After that I bought envelopes and Simon and I walked around a bit and found a Chinese restaurant where pretty much everything was between one and four euros. We decided to try it, and it wasn't bad but a very very bizarre experience. I ordered won ton soup, which wasn't anything special but not bad, although it had a lot of seaweed in it, which I've never had in won ton soup before.  It was just extraordinarily odd being in a Chinese place in Italy, it made me feel weird. I don't think I'm going to try many more ethnic places, of course Italian food will be better anyways. Soup and tea was good though, since my throat was hurting today. I came home before five and am trying to rest, because I hope that if I am getting a little sick I can counter it by not being worn out all the time. Today I learned the word for nap, it's fare un pisolino. So we'll see.

Also, here are some pictures of my host family!

Alessanda, Julia, and Edoardo

Me and Renato, host father

Today I Went Somwhere Smelly.

Right now I'm exhausted, but I'll try to write what I can. Today the program leaders took us on another walk around the city center and gave us some more history. I'm my current state of fatigue I can only remember so much, but I really liked that Mike took us through all the different contrade. Some of the animals are really silly; there's a catapillar, a dolphin, a snail, and even a shell. I also finally found out why the Panther contrada is represented by a leapord-like creature: it has something to do with the language, and I'm kind of thinking that back in the day they didn't have much in the way of animal classifications, so it may have ended up being more of a blanket term for large cats.

Look you can see the Chianti region from Siena!

Oh, we also heard a cool story about how the Florentines (who were always trying to attack and take over Siena) sent in some spies to tell the Sienese about a fake plan to attack the city from the south side, which was significant because Florence usually came in from the North (considering it is north of Siena). So Siena sent it's whole army to the south doors, leaving the north side virtually unprotected-or so the Floretines thought! The women of the city ended up being bad asses a holding of the entire Florentine army until the Sienese army made their way back across the city (party foul). So now at the North door there is plaque or something for the women (sorry, I can't remember exactly what was there, but the point is, GIRL POWER).
Anyways, after the touring we had some pizza for lunch (which wasn't great, but that's what to be expected from any pizza ordered in bulk and delivered in boxes, even in Italy). Oh, I also hate Tuscan bread. As it turns out, the bread is different in Tuscany than any other region because they don't put any salt in it. This is smart because the salt is what absorbs moisture, thus leading to mold. Also, I guess Tuscan food tends to be saltier, so it evens out. Unfortunately, this makes the bread a little harder and weird texture that I can't quite describe. It makes for awful sandwiches. Allora. Speaking of salt, another thing we learned was that they used to keep salt (which was SUPER valuable back there, because if you didn't have it you couldn't preserve stuff and you'd starve) in pumpkins so it wouldn't evaporate. They also used this later as a loose metaphor for these academic dudes who would basically just sit and think all day. The metaphor had something to do with the most valuable commodity being in their heads (get it, because pumpkins are vaguely shaped like heads). Anyways.

After all the cool learning and stuff we went to a hot springs spa, about 30 minutes outside of the city. This was not my favorite. I mean, I'm glad I went and all but it was a little much; the smell of sulfer for one is not the most enjoyable, but even after we adjusted to that it was extremely crowed (probably because its Sunday) and the people were all very... European. That is to say, there we many couples that didn't seem to have a problem with pda, and many people didn't seem to mind being so very squished together in so little clothing. I know that's just how they do it on this side of the world, but there's some culture shock for ya. It was also designed more like a swimming pool with weird milk water in it, and I'm not crazy about swimming pools, especially indoor ones (they're echo-y and slippery and humid), and especially ones packed with cozy Europeans.   Ah well.

The Hot Springs

After that we made it home for dinner and I was proud of myself for correctly identifying the pasta as putenesca. My roommate Julia tends to me more talkative than I am (I suppose I generally wouldn't consider myself a very talkative person), so I like these little mini victories when I'm with my host family. Also, Alessandra made the same excellent dessert as last night!

After dinner I joined the family in the living room to watch a soccer game (Milan vs. Cesena, Milan won) before retiring to finish up a bit of homework. Allors, adesso vorrei dormire. Buona notta!

Also, anyone feel free to comment if you think things and have comments, if you don't I wont mind but I'd love to see who's actually reading this and what y'all think.

OH ps I found my laundry like this when I got home. This is the life.