Siena Thus Far...

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Apparently Saturdays are the cleaning day for most Italian Housewives because “mia mama” spent all yesterday morning cleaning like a machine, she is a tiny little woman but she can move a big couch and bookshelf all by herself! (and comparing my Saturday morning/afternoon with the other students… their “mama’s” are cleaning machines too).

Life In Siena:
So far we’ve only been around Lewis and Clark students, today another group of students arrived in Siena so now I have a roommate, more like a housemate because we have our on separate bedrooms and a lot of the other students have to share their small Italian rooms.
Once our real classes start (after the 3 week intensive language program) begins, we will be paired up with “language partners” from University of Siena. Meaning we are going to have real Italian students our age that they are going to force to be friends with us… I can’t wait! Haha.
Siena itself is like walking into a history book. It is full of compact cobble stone streets with huge old buildings everywhere. In the Piazza Del Campo itself cars are not aloud along with a lot of the side streets so we can walk everywhere and enjoy pretending we don’t live in the 21stC!! There are Pizzerias and Gelaterias (ice cream shops) everywhere and I don’t know if I will ever be able to enjoy American Pizza again!! Today was such nice weather that a group of us bought gelato and sat in the middle of the Campo and enjoyed life! We watched the small weekend Carnivale celebration which consists of children dressed up in costumes running around throwing confetti and silly string, usually AT their parents while they try and keep up with their obnoxious children.
My housemate is really nice, her name is Taryn and is from upstate New York and goes to Siena College. Last night a few of us that live in the same apartment complex went down town and enjoyed the Saturday evening night life, and when we came home around 1 am our “parents” were still up playing cards with their friends and actually offered us coffee!! Italians seem to have a different concept of time, my host dad for instance never appears before 9:30 am and when he does it’s usually in his pajamas!!
This afternoon I went and visited the Medeci Fortress which many locals use as a jogging course. The view from the Medeci Fortress overlooks all of Siena and you can see clear into the mountains and countryside. I spent a nice afternoon walking around the top of the fortress taking pictures and eating carvinale cookies.
So far the food has been amazing and next week we are starting cooking classes, which means I am soon going to be making amazing food (right?). Every day I enjoy a breakfast of biscotti, nutella and warm milk and sugar with some espresso. (expect for one lunch) everything has been really good… Sunday’s big family lunch consisted of a pasta in clam sauce with clams (which was actually really good) and then Octopus and Spinach (not so good…. The octopus were 2 inch long chunks that were really chewy and you could see the suction cups….) Well I have to go to class… so this is all for now!!

Xoxo
Barbara

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