alorah

Hey everyone!
I can't believe that I have been here for two weeks. I feel like it has been forever, yet at the same time I feel like I was just in America. Things here are still great. Food's great; people are great; sights are great. Tutti bene! It's all good!
This past week has been non stop Italian boot camp. Everyday we have about five hours of Italian. My teacher is very very sweet. Her name is Fiora and is extremely patient and willing to explain things over and over again. It can be frustrating learning a new language, and at times it is overwhelming. We taking learning a language from birth for granted. There are so many aspects of a language that I just don’t think about.
For me the most frustrating part is only being able to compose simple, elementary sentences. I have gotten so used to writing and speaking in English that I have taken for granted how much I actually know. Reading and listening (when someone is speaking very slowly) is not terrible. But not being able to write or speak instantly is difficult. I took my first test last Friday. I got an 88 on it, which for one week of Italian is not too shabby...clearly I lost most of my points on the spelling of the numbers; somethings never change, even in another language. Tomorrow we are having yet another test... this one is going to be much harder...so we shall see how I do.
We don’t only sit in class and study...
On Thursday, Lavinia the program director had a bbq at her house for us. It is a huge apartment on this beautiful plot of land where all of the people who work in the program live. The food was AMAZING! We ate homemade salsa and chips, cheese, sausage, chicken, bread, pasta, risotto...you name it. In addition to great food it was nice for us all to be together. Because our classes are broken up by experience and are in two different buildings a lot of us don’t get to see each other. And it was nice getting to know some of the other students not from Siena College.
Last Friday we went to a museum...the Santa Maria de Scalla. It is across from the Duomo and used to be a hospital for pilgrims and orphans. The building is so so old. Inside one of the halls there are frescos painted along the walls and pictures of many of the saints on the ceiling. It was absolutely beautiful. Because everything is so old we could not take pictures...but mine wouldn’t do any good. In some of the rooms you could even seen the original walls and the paintings on them. The basement of the building was dedicated to all archeological findings. Parts of it were kind of creepy because we walked through tunnels under this ancient building and we were looking at tombs, but over all it was very cool.
Friday night we went out with the whole group! Marco and Alejandro (they work for the program) took us out and showed us the fun cheep places in Siena. We spent the night dancing and just enjoying our selves. Saturday we slept late. FINALLY! Amanda and I were on our way out to town when our host dad knocked on the door saying Ragazzi, pronto!! Meaning girls come... it was lunch time. It was not a simple lunch of a sandwich or any light food...no. We ate pasta; it kind of reminded me of the taco pasta we make. Then she offered us left over pasta from the night before. We had some of the left over chicken, salad...and tons more food. After that we went to the city and window shopped...and that is a hard thing to do. I want to buy everything...I caved and bought a watch, because finding out the time here is very difficult. Saturday night we went out again, this time a smaller group but it was still a lot of fun...Sunday was a rest day. Amanda and I slept, cleaned, ate, did homework, watched a movie...on and the funniest part...went for a run, which was more of a walk with the occasional jog. Our host father made pizza...which I expected to be amazing, it wasn’t. Daddy your pizza is soo much better!
On Monday a large group of us went to a Contrada dinner. It was hosted by the Contrada that won the Palio in August. It was very cool to see the inside workings of another Contrada, other than my families.
Today for class we had to go to the mercato...which is an open air market...it is HUGE! It is like nothing I have ever seen before. We got lost and saw tons of stands, yet I think we missed half of it. It is my new favorite thing. They have anything you can think of at dirt cheep. Most things are about 10 euro. Next Wednesday I am on the look out for l'impermiable...raincoat, because it has been raining here for the past few days. But everything is very cute...somethings are strange; you can buy whole slabs of meant of wheels of cheese for example.
Hopefully this rain stops...you all know how I hate it! And because we have a trekking excursion this weekend...I am not too sure what it entails, but I know they promise a beach at the end of it...so it shouldn’t be too terrible?
Wish me luck on my exam tomorrow...and more importatly that trekking!
Ciaociao et tutti amori

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