Milano

So my Milan trip was about a month ago, I'm just not tat great at updating, better late than never.
I had always heard that Milan was industrial and not that pretty so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked the city. It reminded me more of France than Italy but that's not a bad thing at all. This was another excursion arranged by IES so we had a nice little itinerary arranged with plenty of free time. Our first day we saw the last supper by Da Vinci, which was pretty neat but pretty much the only thing the area. The first night we also got he chance to go see a ballet at the famous La Scala opera house. So 8 of us got all dressed up and headed to the ballet. We were way early as Italian only arrive about 10 minutes before anything if they have a reservation so we had plenty of time to sneak pictures and take it in. We were definitely in the nose bleed seats, and could only see about 2/3rds of the stage, so I stood for most of the ballet. It was a mix of modern and classical that was pretty interesting. The good thing about being so far up was I could see everyone on the stage at once and it was a different way to see it.
The next day we toured and even though it was 4 hours it really didn't feel long at all. After the tour my roomie Gio and I decided to climb to the top of the Duomo. It was amazing. The weather was perfect just warm enough in the sun to not need my jacket. We spent about an hour on the roof walking around, taking a million pictures and basking in the sun. It was glorious. After getting off the roof we decided to just walk around the Duomo area and see what the shopping was like there. It was a good choice as I looked down a side street and discover the Ferrari store, four levels of red racing amazingness. Of course it was all hideously expensive but that didn't keep me from perusing the store for about 45 minutes. Gio was a saint for waiting so patiently. The best part was after buying the least expensive things in the store I got to take my picture in a real F1 car they have in the lower level. It was totally worth the cost of an overpriced notebook and pen.
After dinner we walked around in search of the night life only to be told that since it was the first cold weekend there wouldn't be much action until much later. Instead of waiting we decided to make our own fun and 4 of us ducked into a random Irish pub with Halloween decorations. Irish Pub's are quite popular in Italy, it seems that every 3rd place is some sort of Irish pub. Anyway we made a good choice as the music was good and place warm and fun.
Our last day we had a tour of the La Scala Museum. This was probably my least favorite activity as our guide was extremely boring. There were so many interesting things she could have talked about but instead she told us about the technique of some obscure painter who painted the portraits of La Scala patrons. She gave the tour in Italian and I decided that it wasn't worth the effort yo understand something so boring. Once I gave up on the guide and walked around by myself it was much more enjoyable.
After a quick lunch it was time to hop on the bus back to Siena. The drive through the mountains was really pretty, especially with a light dusting of snow. It was a great trip, another success!

And the streets were lined with chocolate

During the Euro Chocolate festival the streets of the city of Perugia were filled with stands selling chocolate in every form you can think of. I went to the festival with some of the other girls in my program along with a few thousand other people. The festival was packed, especially around the stands handing out free chocolate. In the middle of the street there were a string of huge chocolate carvings and as the sculptors carved off chunks they were handed out to the crowd. I unfortunately didn’t manage to get some of the shavings as I reached the front of the crowd just in time for their lunch break.

After walking around for a while we decided to grab some food not made of chocolate for lunch. We stood in the longest line ever to get a kebab, which are surprisingly common in Italy. After finally getting our lunch we wandered around some more and tried to find something to do. There were so many different kinds of chocolate and it was incorporated into everything including pasta, but here are only so many chocolate stands you can look at. There were a lot less free samples than I anticipated but I did have some amazing chocolate with chili powder in it. It sounds gross but really it was awesome and had a little kick.

While trying to get away from the crowds for a little we ended up just wandering randomly around Perugia and ran into some of Molly’s friends from school. We had a good chat and got some suggestions for dinner. It was a little colder than we expected so we decided to eat an early dinner and then head toward the bus station. We waited around at the bus station for about an hour and it was getting pretty close to the bus time but yet we were the only people there. We discovered that because it was Sunday the bus didn’t pick us up at the place it dropped us off so we ran onto a local but that took us to the train station. We thought we were cutting it close and when we arrived and saw no bus we got a little scared, but the bus was just late. The bus left almost 45 minutes late, but the driver was clipping down the road at a pretty good pace and we ended up back in Siena at about the same time as expected.

Life

The past few weeks have been rather uneventful and I’ve been spending a lot more time is Siena settling into a regular pattern of life.

I love my roommates and we've been spending a lot of time together and with the other people in our program. We've been branching out too and meeting new people although they probably think I'm a mute as I don't speak much in Italian. I understand more than I can say, but only if they don't talk super fast.

We’ve met some of our apartment neighbors including the little old man who lives at the end of the hall. I always see him as I am leaving in the morning or coming in at night. He is always dressed up with a blazer and tie and his shiny white hair slicked back. We say hello and sometimes have a little conversation. Sometimes he’s with his wife who reminds me of my little old Italian great aunts. Anyway Yesterday afternoon Julia and I were reading and we heard the door buzz and were a little surprised since neither of us was expecting anyone. Julia answered the door to see the older man standing there smiling with a package. It was for our roommate Gio, but since we don’t have mail boxes in the building the postman left it on the floor near the boxes. Our neighbor took it in and figured out it must belong to us and kindly delivered it to our door. There’s nothing like the kindness of a near stranger to brighten your day.

We’ve been in regular classes for three weeks now and the culture shock of the academic change has worn off. Teachers here don’t think that grades are important and the passing is all that matters, but IES doesn’t share the same theory and so we have requirements including a research paper for every class. Also we spend a lot of time in class talking about random things like travel and festivals, which may be because we have such small classes but I like it. I’m taking a class on Dante, Italian, history/anthropology of Siena and an Economics of the EU. My Dante professor is really nice but we literally spend most of the class listening to him read his lecture notes word for word out loud. Hopefully this will end soon and we will get onto actually reading and analyzing, which will be less mind numbing. My Italian is ok in class but studying is proving to be difficult as our book is literally a workbook without the grammar rules. Our professor is really into learning the language first by listening and speaking and then learning the grammar, which I feel is more difficult, especially when the tests are all grammar. My history/anthropology class is my favorite since it’s mostly discussion and actually interesting. The professor is really excited about the class, so much so that sometimes she gets off topic for about 15 minutes just answering a simple question and then forgets what the question was. The econ class started off with a brief history of Europe lesson for 2 weeks which was a little boring and repetitive. Now we have moved onto the actual econ section but we’re not past the intro so we’ll see how that turns out. So far it’s a little troublesome as our professor has a difficult time translating some of the technical terms but I’m sure it’ll work out.

Tomorrow begins a few weeks of scattered trips including the Eurochocolate festival, Milan and Barcelona. I’ll try and keep you posted.

Taylor's Visit

Sorry I’ve been a little lazy with blog updates.

Two weekends ago Taylor came from Spain to visit me!! I picked him up at the train station Friday night and it was so nice to know that I got 2 whole days just to hang around with him. We went back to my apartment to meet my lovely roommates and have some dinner. I decided to show off my new culinary skills by making some veal picatta. Working in our closet size kitchen with more than one person is a little troublesome but we managed and turned out a fabulous dinner. After a lovely meal and conversation we headed out to our newly discovered local hang out, the Barron Rosso. Siena doesn’t have much nightlife but this place is usually pretty cool. So we grabbed a table in the back and chatted until the live band started up, a cover band with an interesting set list at one point transitioning Pearl Jam to Otis Redding . The odd choices made “guess the song” a fun game to play. I won surprising everyone with my random music knowledge.

Saturday we decided to be tourist in Siena and spend the day meandering around town without a real plan. We went to the Duomo as our first stop. I said before I don’t really like visiting churches but the Duomo in Siena is just beautiful! Now is also the time of year when they uncover the floors, which are amazing. There are many different inlayed marble designs in different place in the floor, some relating to bible passages and some relating to Siena. We spent quite a while in the Duomo. After leaving we took our time walking back to the apartment to get lunch. It was really neat to walk around with someone who doesn’t walk on these streets everyday it made me notice things that I missed. After some lunch we walked some more and ended up getting some gelato and basking in the sun in the Campo. It was a wonderful aimless and relaxing day.

Sunday we thought that a day trip to local hill town sounded like a great idea. After deciphering the bus schedule it looked like there was a direct bus to San Gimignano which is a beautiful little town about an hour away. We arrived at the bus station but there was no bus to San Gimignano at the specified time, so we asked a driver and he said his bus was going there we just had to change in Poggibonsi. I was confused but we hopped on and made the transfer and arrived in San Gimignano easy peasy. After arriving we spent some time exploring, and we walked up to the remains of a castle which was really neat and even had a few musicians playing medieval music too to add to the atmosphere. After walking back through an olive grove we decided to climb up the tall bell tower in the middle of town. The view from the top was just beautiful and definitely worth the climb and euros. After some more aimless wandering we decided to catch the bus back.

The first bad sign about our bus trip back was that the direct bus that was supposed to arrive at 3:30 didn’t come, then we thought that a bus to Poggibonsi should arrive soon, but no. We finally got on the bus at 4:25 thinking it would just be another easy transfer and we would be back in Siena in no time, wrong again. We arrived in Poggibonsi late and after taking quite some time to figure which of the 5 different schedules applied on Sunday we discovered we had missed the bus to Siena by about 2 minutes and the next bus was not for 2 hours. Usually being in a Tuscan city for 2 hours wouldn’t be so bad but Poggibonsi happens to be the ugliest city in Tuscany, I was told this is because it was bombed during WWII and lost all its old charm then. On a side note the last time I got stuck in Poggibonsi also happened to be while trying to reach San Gimignano when I came with my family and the Flo’s. We got turned around in a traffic circle and lost in Poggibonsi for about 45 minutes. How fitting that I get stuck here again. Finally it was getting close to the time the bust was supposed to arrive, but it was late of course but all I could think was that Taylor and I would be stranded in Poggibonsi. The bus arrived at last 15 minutes late and packed to the brim, but there was just enough room for us and our fellow Siena-San Gimignano travelers. Arriving back in Siena was such a relief and I learned a valuable lesson, don’t try and take the bus on Sundays.

Overall it was a fabulous weekend with so many great little places and views and moments. Even if Siena can seem boring, I really do love where I live. Having Taylor here was amazing and I’m so glad that he made the trip.

Bologna, not like the lunch meat

My first overnight trip from Siena was a great success, although I can’t take any credit. Last weekend IES organized a cultural trip for our whole group to Bologna. At first I was not super excited about the location as I was hoping for something more exotic, but Bologna is actually really neat. We left on Thursday morning bright and early to take a bus to Firenze and then from there we hopped on a train to Bologna. It was actually a very quick trip if you don’t count the train delay.

After checking into the hotel and checking out the shopping for a little we headed to the famous Neptune fountain in the Piazza Maggiore to meet our tour guide. Bologna has a long history dating back to its founding by the Etruscans and then it’s later development by the Romans. Bologna also has the first university in Europe and was home to the Papal seat for a while. On our tour the old city hall and saw a building that they are now using as the public library that has the ruins of the ancient roman city for view underneath the floor. We of course went to the University of Bologna .The walls and ceilings of the hallways at the University are covered with the crest of each student who was elected to the equivalent of student council. Also if a professor was especially like his bust and a large plaque were put on the wall. We also saw the dissection theater which was amazing. There were beautiful sculptures of wood in every section of the ceiling and some amazing statues surrounding the professor’s seat. After the University of course we saw a few churches. I know that I’m in Italy and should get used to seeing a million church tours but really unless there’s pretty art inside I’m not really a fan. We went to the medieval church that’s famous because it’s actually 7 churches in one, so if you’re trying to reach that magical church quota it’s the place to be. At the end of our 3 hour tour (luckily we didn’t get shipwrecked) I was lacking much appreciation for medieval architecture.

After some shopping and a nice little rest back at the hotel we headed out to dinner. One of the best things about our IES outings is at every meal I sit next to different people and really get to know them better and have completely different conversations every night.

Saturday we met our guide in the morning and did some more touring. We started out at the medieval museum where we viewed many tombs of university professors. The university was and is a huge part of Bolognian culture and these tombs were amazing works of art. Being a professor in Bologna was a huge honor and professors were very respected. After the museum we saw a few more churches and then the famous towers. I didn’t know Bologna was known for its towers but apparently it is, there are two and one is leaning. After our tour a group of us headed to a Mexican restaurant. I was pretty excited about having food that was not Italian, and it was pretty good. After our long lunch we did a little shopping and headed back. We had another fabulous group dinner and then decided we wanted to go out. We ended up at a huge Irish pub that was playing reggae and a rugby match. It was really fun to go out with everyone and just hang out. Siena is lacking for good night spots so bologna was a nice change.

Sunday we went to cooking school. In the first half we learned all about making different types of pasta and then made it. We made big tortellini with cheese and little ones with ham and then some plain noodles. Folding the tortellini was like folding origami and once I got the hang of it was pretty easy, although some of the one in our group were pretty misshapen. For the second part of our “class” we got to eat everything that we made. It was quite a delicious meal, plus it’s fun when you helped make it. After our class we hopped back on the train to Florence. When we got to Florence we were pushed off our bus to Siena by a rude German school group, but after waiting around for a while we got the next bus back and were happily home in Siena. I really felt settle here when I realized that I was talking about being so happy to come home and meaning my apartment in Siena.

The Wine Harvest

I won’t be quitting school to become a wine maker anytime soon. Last Wednesday some of us from IES went to a vineyard and helped with the grape harvest. Our program director John lives in a little house located on a vineyard and last week he mentioned that over the weekend he had helped with the harvest and one of the girls in our group though it sounded neat and said she really wanted to go. John got it all arranged and Wednesday afternoon we set off to pick grapes. After a 10 minute walk up the lane we got to the vineyard and it was beautiful. Apparently it’s one of the oldest vineyards in Tuscany and it has been in the same family for a few centuries. It was just as you’d expect a Tuscan vineyard to look with rolling hills and grape vines in every direction and a few small olive groves too. We met with the owner who was so excited to have the extra help, were given a few brief instructions and then we were let loose to cut the grapes.

Now this was not the I Love Lucy version of working at a winery where she just mashes the grapes with her feet. It was actually pretty hard work, not difficult but very labor intensive. You have to keep your eyes peeled to see some of the bunches and grapes also grow in the brush at the bottom of the vine and you have to cut them from the vine and fish them out of the branches and such. In the first 15 minutes I was absolutely covered in burrs. I felt like our cat Nelson when he comes in from outside. It was fun though working with everyone and talking and the grapes tasted great. After about an hour and a half the fun and novelty of harvesting grapes in the Tuscan countryside started to wear off and it just became work and we were supposed to be there for another hour. Finally it was time to head home and there was some confusion about our transportation back. We were going to take the bus, but Giacomo, the son of the owner, said that he’d drive us all back and we thought this meant that we’d take a few of the cars and head back apparently not. At 6:30 when we were going to leave we discovered that this meant he would be taking shifts of people for the 15 minute drive back to the city starting at 6:30. Needless to say it took a little longer than anticipated to get back, but as I have discovered in my first few weeks here this is the way many things turn out. Overall it was an awesome experience that I would not have wanted to miss, and I think in a few weeks we are getting either a bottle of their olive oil or wine as a thank you.

A Failed Excursion

I have discovered that traveling from Siena is not as easy as I expected. Last Friday we had a day off from class so a few of us decided to try and go to Elba because we heard it was beautiful. There was a page on the bus website that said they ran a direct line to the coast where we could take the ferry. So Friday morning we woke up super early to head to the bus station only to be told that the beach line no longer existed. Molly, Bri, Gio and I decided that we would go back and sleep for a little and then come up with a new plan and maybe go to Elba on Saturday instead and try and go to Florence later in the day. So after a little nap we reconvened at Molly and Bri’s apartment to find a new way to get to Elba. The bus website with schedules are extremely hard to understand and the fact that only the home page can be translated into English doesn’t really help. We searched and searched but the only thing we could find was super expensive, especially since we only wanted to go for a day trip. Finally we just gave up and decided to go to Florence for the day Saturday.

Saturday at about noon Molly, Bri, Chris and I hopped on an express bus for Florence. It was actually a really quick little trip, it only took about an hour which was great. We didn’t really have anything specific in mind or planned for our outing, which probably would have been good. We ended up just walking around and I was a little underwhelmed. I think that since I’ve seen all the big sites before it just was not as exciting. It actually made me feel so much better about living in Siena. After the debacle on Friday I was feeling pretty frustrated with Siena and second guessing my choice, but after being in Florence which was so crowed and hot and just a big city I was so happy to get back to Siena. Florence is a good place to visit but for me I think Siena is better for day to day. Like everything is life there are trade offs. Sure it’s harder to get places and there may not be as many places to go at night but I am ok with that. I like not having to worry about where I am walking in Siena at night or that it’s quieter. It was worth the price of the bus ticket just to get that perspective.