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Published: October 17th 2006
Now for my first entry as my 21 year old self. Hopefully my writing will sound more mature, as I think I have gained much experience and insight since turning 21....
The weekend before my birthday was a very relaxing and beautiful one. On Saturday, I went with school to a vineyard in the countryside to participate in the vendemmia, the grape harvest. We arrived, energetic and ready to get out there and get some grapes! We had a warm, sunny day, and armed with ‘fornice,’ the clippers, we went out to the fields with the workers, who were all very friendly and welcoming, happy to talk to us about our experiences in Italy thus far (some of them called me ‘Regina Elisabetta’ ‘Queen Elizabeth’). Now, if you will all recall, in the personal profile of my travelblog that I wrote before coming to Italy, I distinctly enunciated that I really just don’t like grapes. Well, Italy has totally changed my opinion of the previously despised fruit. I really must say that there isn’t anything else like going out into the Tuscan countryside, cutting a bunch of ripe grapes right off the vine, and snacking on them right there. I think
I severely damaged the profit of the vineyard with the obscene amount of grapes that I ingested (my method was to cut a few bunches...stuff my face a little...cut a few...eat a few...). It was incredible and I really just could not get enough. Sticky and exhausted, we went back for lunch and each got to fill a glass of wine from the big vats in which they store it. Needless to say, it was a wonderful afternoon. Later that day, I went for dinner with two friends to the apartment of one of their friends from the south of Italy, and he made really great tortellini. Afterwards, we went to a party of the contrada Selva, the contrada that won the Palio, and had the opportunity to witness more of the wonderfully crazy Sienese culture (they were parading around with the Palio, and the jockey who won the race was crowdsurfing....).
My host father is from a small country town about 20 minutes from Siena called Buonconvento. His family has lived on the same country house and property for many generations (his mother was telling me that her father, her, and all of her children were born in
the same house), and on Sunday I went with them to harvest grapes from the vineyard on their property. I was getting to be quite the pro! It was a pretty hot day, and after only about an hour in the fields, Lucia and I went inside to relax. Their house is absolutely beautiful, and together with the surrounding countryside, it was the ultimate tranquil place to relax. We had lunch of the normal gigantic proportions, and, because I was still trying to recover from a cold that just seemed never ending, my host family suggested that I take an afternoon snooze, so I went into one of the bedrooms to bask in the serenity of the countryside...and ended up falling asleep for about 3 hours. It was probably one of the best naps (‘pisolino’ in Italian), of my entire life (admittedly, complete with drool and lines on my face from the pillow). Altogether, it was definitely a buon fine settimana!
I was getting pretty excited to celebrate my birthday in Italy. On Monday, October the 2, I went with a group of friends from class to the Irish Pub in Siena to celebrate my birthday at midnight (it
was definitely anticlimactic for obvious reasons, but still a fun celebration). Everybody here was wonderful and made my birthday very special for me, which was especially good because I was really missing everyone from home on my birthday. At school, I got cards and presents, and at school they had a birthday torte for me and everyone sang “Tanti Aguri.” Luckily, on my birthday I only had class from 9-10:30, so I was able to spend the whole day relaxing in Siena, hanging around the city and having coffee and gelato with friends. I went home in the evening to help Lucia make my birthday tiramisu (ok, so my ‘help’ really only consisted in operating the mixer, but it was a good effort), and we had a delicious birthday dinner of homemade lasagna, then we had the tiramisu, complete with the number 21 candles that Lucia bought for me. I had invited a bunch of friends for a little birthday festa that evening at a bar where I had previously reserved a place for about 25 people, but when we arrived, although we had reservations, it was closed (it turns out the owner wasn’t feeling well, and decided to close
without notifying anyone), but we ended up finding a place at a nice bar in the Piazza del Campo, and had a great party! Probably around twenty friends from school and from Siena came, and I had a good, old-fashioned, twenty-first birthday celebration (leaving out details, I’ll just say that it was great that one of my Italian friends drove me home, and it was also a pretty lucky thing that I don’t have class until 1 on Wednesdays.. My Italian professor, Antontella, who is 30 and a really fun teacher, had previously told me that she would totally understand if I came to class a little tired and needed to sleep a little in class, ‘dormire un po’ durante la lezione.’ I didn’t have to take her up on that offer).
Classes are still going really well, and I just started last week teaching English at a preschool! Together with another girl from my program, we have a group of about 18 Italian four-year-olds, and it’s absolutely crazy (‘un casino!’), but it’s going to be a really rewarding experience. I just have to suck up my pride when a four-yeard old says something to me that I don’t
understand. It’s funny, because I think that, while they know that we are from America, I don’t think they really understand the concept that we don’t fluently understand their language (plus, it’s hard to comprehend a foreign language with a bunch of kids running around screaming with their thumbs in their mouths). Last week, we worked on teaching them colors, and I think that this week we are going to make clay rainbows to review the colors with them. There is one little girl who is probably the most adorable child I have ever seen. She’s a very mature little four year old, and she seemed to understand that it was hard for me to understand the words when they weren’t clearly enunciated (really, enunciation is such an important thing when trying to understand a new language, and for this reason it’s also really hard for me to understand people who don’t have teeth...), so she would walk around with us and explain things in really slow, clear Italian. Then, she took my hand and said, “Vieni a giocare con me?,” “Come and play with me?” It was absolutely adorable, and I really can’t wait to go back.
For
my Art History class, although the professor is totally bizarre (whenever anyone answers a question incorrectly, he does this diabolical little laugh that I really just can’t get over), it’s really incredible to be able to learn about the artwork by actually going to see the originals instead of having to rely only on slides. For our second class we went to the Duomo, the cathedral in Siena, and last week we took a class trip to the Palazzo Pubblico. In a few weeks, we’ll also be taking a class trip to Florence.
This past weekend, I did some more sightseeing around Siena, visiting and learning about some different churches and sights that I hadn’t seen before (I want to make sure I know all of the best places to take my parents, who are coming to Italy in meno di due settimane!!”). I have also been trying to read as much as I can in Italian to practice and learn new vocabulary, and I am currently plugging my way through Il diario di Bridget Jones: Chili, amore e sigarette: un anno appassionatamente single, and I had a great time sitting for many hours this weekend in a park
reading and people-watching. Also, while reading in the park, I get the opportunity to practice speaking Italian with many people who come and sit nearby and chat. It’s usually fun (despite the occasional creepy guy, like the one last week who asked if I wanted to go swimming with him..). One time, these two elderly women came and sat down, and, when they found out I was from Pennsylvania, they wanted to know if it was much more beautiful there than in Italy (Steph, I told them no, that I didn’t think anywhere was more beautiful than the booming, ethereal metropolis that is Harrisburg, Pennsylvania...). Also last week, an old man in a beige suit came and sat next to me and started giving me advice on life, like how I should always follow my instinct, no matter what anyone else is saying, and he stressed the importance of education. He said he wanted to talk to me because he saw my smile and said that the young in Italy just don’t smile like that anymore. He told me to consider this the advice of a grandfather, and he called me ‘child.’ He talked to me for a long time,
and, while I honestly didn’t understand everything that he said, it was a wonderful little encounter.
I also had an experience last week that made me pretty proud (probably prouder than it should have, but hey...). I was on the bus and a group of Americans got on and started asking the driver questions, but she didn’t understand what they were saying, so I went up and translated for them! Although they were just asking pretty simple questions, like where they could buy tickets, it was still pretty exciting for me!
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