New Day, New City

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As I write this we are now in the beautiful town of Siena. Yesterday we all boarded buses and headed to Assisi where we toured the church of St. Francis of Assisi, which was an interesting experience because of all of strong religious presence in the town. I was able to learn many things about the Catholic religion and St. Francis in general that I did not know before. After visiting Assisi, we got on busses again and headed to Siena.

As we drove, I tried to stay awake and look at the scenes outside of the window. I was amazed at the beautiful scenery all around the countryside. There were tons of mountains with snowy tops and fields of grapes, which I assume are used to make wine!

When we arrived in Siena, I was amazed by the beautiful landscape. I did not know what to expect, but was greeted by hills, mountains, and many small houses and buildings. The city is a college town and much more upscale than many places around Rome. In walking around last night and today I was able to really get to know the city better and compare it to our time spent in Rome.

I honestly thought that the two cities would be somewhat similar, but things are very different here in Siena, from the food to the houses and shops. In Rome, I was constantly dodging cars or mopeds on streets that did not even look like streets, but sidewalks! Here in Siena, there are rarely cars or mopeds at all on the streets, but they are definitely crowded with people. Another difference here is that many of the stores are not open early in the mornings, which was not true in Rome, where things seemed to be open all of the time for the most part. It seems as if this town is more dedicated to shopping than Rome and I have even seen less residential areas than I did in Rome.

Even the food here is somewhat different as we ordered pizza last night in a restraunt and found it to be different than pizza we encountered in Rome. Also, many of the dishes contained meats. One of the people at our table mentioned that because Siena is so North, its food has influences from other European and Germanic countries, where they eat lots of meat. I have been trying to step outside my comfort zone when it comes to food here, and I even tried a friend's pasta in boar sauce last night. It was definitely different, but good!

Hopefully in the next few days I will become more accustomed to this city, which seems to be set up in a more confusing way than Rome! I have found that there are more hills than in Rome and that the buildings and stores are so tall that it is hard to find my bearings on the windy streets, which all look similar. As we continue our stay in Siena I hope to learn more about the cuture and the city as well!

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Comments

[Jenna]

It makes me happy to hear that you're trying new foods...you're gonna come back here and eat all sorts of things! The contrasts and comparisons you made between Rome and Siena are really interesting. I love reading your entries!