Il Vino

Today was pretty much a dream come true. We went to a wine tasting at a vineyard where they make truly delicious wine. The Chianti wine region is in central Tuscany, and also happens to be where I'm living...no big deal.

Marta showed us around the place a little bit. They keep the grapes in small barrels for eight years and then they combine it into larger containers. She also told us a little bit about how the temperature the grapes are at is super important. Every single piece of the process is significant and must be done precisely. But it results in some truly magical liquid.

This is the vineyard. Even on a rainy day, it was beautiful.

It looks kinda spooky right now, but I thought it was super cool.

These are the barrels that the grapes are stored in. It's super artsy and great. I love it.

And then they go into great big containers that are very closely monitored for temperature etc.

I want pretty displays of wine like this in my house someday. I'm not even kidding. It is so great.

This is one of the wines that we got to try. We sat around a lovely table and ate bread, cheese and meat, and tried the wines. We also had some of the best olive oil that I have ever tasted. I know I'm raving about this oil but it really was that good. Pairing these wines with the food is spectacular. All the flavors together are so rich and Italian, and it's exactly what I was looking for.

When we got back, I went back to my apartment. It was rainy and I was pretty exhausted. I did my homework with my Italian host sisters, and then cuddled with Angelica (the three-year-old) before dinner.

Dinner was delicious as usual, but I couldn't eat as much as I usually do because we had eaten so much earlier at the aperitivo. 

Tomorrow is going to be an early morning. We're heading off to Rome! I'm so excited to see some of the things that we talked about in Latin class in high school. I've been wanting to go for so long! Hopefully the weather will at least be acceptable. I don't mind a little rain but I do want to be able to run around and do lots of things.

Also, thank you for the comments, for those of you who have! I like hearing back from you and getting feedback. I hope you've enjoyed my ramblings so far. There is many more to come.

Mercato e' Palio

Every Wednesday, there is a GIGANTIC outdoor market in Siena. I really, truly mean gigantic. There are two streets of vendors that come and sell everything from cheap clothing, to house ware, to all sorts of delicious food.

I promise I will show you pictures of the market at some point (don't worry, there are lots of Wednesdays left), but today I was busy running around the market looking for a new bag. I was successful though! I opted for a cheap, 10 euro bag. It's big enough to hold my Italian textbook, and has a cross-body strap so it is versatile for everyday use. I was pleased.

I know it's not genuine leather, and yes, Italy is known for it's leather, so if I'm doing ok financially at the end of the semester, I may buy another, nicer bag to bring home. But we'll see.

We also went to the market as a class. This was our novice Italian class with five other girls and myself who know absolutely no Italian. Well, we started knowing absolutely no Italian, but I'm pleased to announce that I'm up from "zero" to "practically zero"!! We had to find the prices of certain items and identify popular colors of clothing (In the winter: black, white, grey, beige). The sweaters looked super comfy though. I think next week's project is a cozy sweater.

We also learned about the Palio here in Siena. It is a crazy cool tradition that dates back for many many hundreds of years. Siena is divided into 17 sections, and each section is a contrada. Once in July and once in August, there is a horse race in the Piazza del Campo (this is called the Palio). It is a HUGE deal. There is a parade and events and celebrations, and it's just HUGE. Unfortunately, we won't be in Siena during the actual races but it was really cool learning about it. The amount of emotion that goes into routing for your contrada is insane.

We learned that children are baptized into a contrada when they are very young and it becomes like an extended family. It's actually really cool. Each contrada has elected members that make decisions on behalf of the group and they all have their own bar where they can go to hang out.

Additionally, each contrada has a museum. We visited one of the museums today...and I can show you a little bit of it! The tour guide showed us around. There are some really cool artifacts that they have, and this is also where they have meetings regarding the affairs of the contrada.

The symbol of the contrada we visited was the porcupine (as depicted above).

Look! Even the chairs have the porcupine on them! (Well, I guess it's kind of hard to see, but look for the porcupine on the chair...)

This is the meeting room where the affairs of the contrada are discussed:

So one of the more interesting fun facts about this race is that the horses get blessed before the race. It seems super silly but the race is extraordinarily dangerous. We watched a video about the Palio and we saw horses fall over and many jockey's fall off the horse and get trampled. However, it doesn't actually matter to the race if the jockey falls off. The horse can actually win on it's own. This picture (above) is of the church area of this particular contrada. 

And lastly: If you win, you get a banner. I actually don't know the details of this particular banner. We took in a lot of information today. But this photograph shows some of the symbols of the other contradas. My next project is to learn about which contrada my family is in!

You can see the porcupine in the bottom, right of this banner. Also, note the art skills! What's Italy without some truly awesome art?!

Oh, oh, oh! I spent a long time looking at flights today, but I'm going to Greece and Israel for Spring Break! Money. well. spent. I'm so excited! Booking flights is super confusing and kind of stressful, but lots of progress was made so I'm pleased :)

Italian Textbook...and I'm going to Rome!

We got our Italian textbooks today.

You know it's a good textbook because it says espresso on it :)

Also, this weekend, I'm going to Rome (!!!!!) with some of the other girls on the trip. We spent a few hours this afternoon trying to do some planning. Mostly this involved sitting around and looking at different hostels, comparing the prices, locations, and ratings, and just being generally confused. But we did pick one, and put down a deposit so it was very successful. We leave Friday morning!

I don't really have anything else to share right now, but I did want to post this picture of the textbook, so y'all can enjoy that.

Ciao for now!

Bottini

Today’s adventure was visiting the Bottini—the old aqueducts that brought water to Siena. They are no longer in use for bringing water to the people, but it is how water gets to the fountain in Siena. The guide told us that even though the water is super clear, it is not safe to drink. It comes from rainwater and is not filtered like the drinking water.

We only walked a very small portion of the Bottini. It extends a long way but it was really interesting to see this piece of Siena’s history. We entered through the pubic library and climbed down. It was a little bit scary being below the city, and in such a small space but it was really cool. Also, it was very dark and quiet. We brought flashlights so that we could see. There were a few places where there were bricks to slow the flow of water, and there we could hear it moving, but mostly, it was completely quiet.

When we exited, we climbed back up a few steep steps and though a metal door in the wall. It is one of those doors that I probably would disregard if I were just walking down the street, but we stepped up, and it was as if we popped out of nowhere. We had to reorient ourselves as to where in Siena we were too. There’s nothing like being underground to help you lose your sense of direction! I couldn’t take pictures because it was so dark, so I can’t show you what it was like, but you can imagine a dark tunnel underground J

Also...some other somewhat random thoughts:

Something about living in another country is getting used to the little differences. These things include light switches, toilets, and doors. The light switches aren’t so confusing, but you do have to turn on a light to the main stairs in the apartment. These lights are on a timer, which is a super great idea. It saves tons of electricity in comparison to at home where public hallways are lit at all times. However, I’ll admit I’m still not sure where the light switch is in my building. This means that when I come home at night, if it’s super dark, I’ll use the flashlight on my phone to make my way up the stairs. I know, typical American…it’s embarrassing.

The toilets are different too...mostly in the way that they flush. Some of them have a handle to push on the wall, and others have a little piece on a fixture above it that you pull down. Also, while we’re on the super fascinating subject of toilets, I will share that I had my first experience with paid toilets in Italy. I remember paying to use the bathroom once in Poland about four years ago, but this was still pretty new to me. It has one of those revolving…um…things (I don’t know the word for it), that let’s through one person at a time. You put your coin into the machine and go through. My next challenge was operating the sink. Turns out, these sinks turn on by pressing a lever with your foot on the floor. Also genius! This totally eliminates the problem of unsanitary bathroom fixtures. I was impressed (once I figured out how it works of course).

And lastly, for doors: it seems like every door in Italy is different. I’ve gotten confused on several different occasions about how to either unlock, open, or relock a door. To get out of my apartment building, you have to press a red button that unlocks the mechanism from the inside. This was scary the first time. In my mind, American buttons are for emergencies only, but I use this one on a daily basis. However, even though the doors are more confusing, they are about ten times more likely to be gorgeous. Everything in Siena is old and beautiful. It still amazes me to look at these old buildings and all the care and detail that when into the architectural design. Sometimes doors are intricately decorated, and other times they are simple, but still beautiful, with big doorknobs in the center.

Well…there is an exception to this. I’ve found quite a few automatic glass doors. These doors feel quite out of place to me. They open quickly, and usually you have to get quite close to it for it to open. It feels very high tech to me though. Even though we have automatic doors all over at home…these doors have a different feel to them. I don’t quite know how to describe it, but it kinda feels like I’m entering some top security lab where the government is doing secret research that involves dangerous chemicals…ok, that’s probably over the top but still…

Sorry there were no pictures today. I could show you another landscape picture of Siena but I'm going to save those for a little while more :)

Mass

Do you remember the picture I showed you yesterday of the Siena Cathedral? If not, you can scroll down a bit and see a picture of one of the most beautiful buildings in Siena. Got that? OK, well, I went to mass there today. I know it sounds strange. What is a nice Jewish girl doing at mass? I decided to go with one of the other girls on my program to mass to see what it was like. I'm here to learn aren't I? So that's exactly what I did. It was a fascinating experience, and one that I'll admit, went mostly over my head. I was so incredibly far out of my league, but I don't think that was a bad thing. I was there to observe and see what it was like. And bonus: I got to see the inside of the building. I think I will go as far as to say that it is even more beautiful than the inside of the Duomo in Florence. I didn't take any pictures because that didn't seem appropriate at the time, but there was a ton of art and intricate architectural details. I definitely want to go back there during the day when I can see the stained glass (the service was at 6pm).

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I did some more walking around and trying to do some planning for trips later in the semester. I'm facing a tricky balance of wanting to plan things now and fill up every moment, and wanting to leave my time open so that I can do things as they come. However, I was noticing that transportation costs increase tremendously as you try to book things without advanced planning. I'm not sure this is a challenge that I will conquer completely during this trip. There are definitely pros and cons to advanced planning and no "right" way to do it so we'll just have to see how it goes.

I also spent some more time walking around the fortress. I think I showed you a bit of this yesterday, but I think this is one of those places that I will never get over how gorgeous it is.

Besides, I wouldn't want to get through a whole post without putting in some pretty pictures. I wouldn't want you to forget how gorgeous it is here. If it makes you want to visit, then I'm doing my job.

I also went into a super adorable bookstore today. Monique and I were looking at the cookbook section (what other section would I be looking at?) and there were so many beautiful books to look at. I wanted to buy all of them so I decided I would have to think it over and then go back and buy one later in the semester. I don't think it would be super practical to fill a 50lb. suitcase with cookbooks, but I'm certainly considering it!

Quiet Saturday

Today's post is going to be shorter. It was a pretty quiet day...finally got to sleep in! Then I did some walking around. It's fun to just wander around here because you are bound to run into something beautiful. For example:

See? I wasn't kidding. Looking out over the Tuscan countryside is extraordinarily peaceful. The first picture is literally right outside of my house and down the street about 100 feet. The other view was a little bit farther of a walk, but totally worth it.

I also decided to take another picture of the Siena Cathedral. I think I have already shown you this particular building before, but the sky was just so beautiful, and the lighting is much better in this picture. Stunning.

One other girl and I also walked around the fortress. You can go up on top and there is a 1k path that goes around. It was beautiful, and there was a gorgeous view of the city. This is definitely a place that I would like to spend more time. And, it's right near the IES Center where all of our classes are.

View from the fortress.

Today was also the first day that I wasn't completely starving by the time I had dinner with my family. However, it occurred to me that it's better if I'm super hungry when we have dinner. It's always delicious and it's great to sit down for a full meal when you're really hungry. I'm going to keep this in mind from now on.

Also, I forgot to mention this yesterday, but I'm pleased to announce the purchase of my first shot glass abroad! I definitely need to add to my collection while I am here, and the first purchase was a simple shot glass from a street vendor in Firenze. It has an image of the Duomo there made of metal on the outside. I know...that was an absolutely terrible description, but I did need to share that the collection is continuing! No worries about that one.

And lastly, I realized that I didn't notice the lack of traffic lights in Siena until I saw a traffic light in Firenze yesterday. There aren't many there...and none in the center of the city, but near the bus station and around the outside where there is car traffic, there are a few lights. There is also a road there not made out of cobblestone. It was kind of funny stepping out into the road like I do back home. Here in Siena, everything is cobblestone and cars come bobbling through the streets occasionally, but mostly there is foot traffic. You have to get out of the way of the cars, but it really feels more like they are in a pedestrian area than it feels like we are walking down the middle of the street. I have a feeling that my words aren't coming out particularly coherently right now, but I think you get the idea. It was just something I noticed, so I thought I would write it down so as not to forget.

Firenze, Italia

Today was an amazing, awe inspiring trip to Florence. Six other girls and I hopped on a bus to Florence around 9 o'clock this morning. When we arrived in Florence, it was just a short walk to the Duomo (quite possibly the most beautiful thing I've seen in my entire life). There is absolutely no way that I can show you the Duomo in one picture so I'm going to try to pick a couple that will scratch the surface of what we say in person.

Yea...that's me. It's fine.

I guess you're just going to have to imagine the rest...and take my word for it that it was absolutely incredible. It's one of those buildings that highlights so incredibly well, the painstaking amount of work that went into it. The contrast of colors and the detail that went into every single stone is outrageous.

See that tower on the right side of the second picture? Yea? We climbed up that. Yup. It was amazing. I took a TON of pictures. Probably twice as many pictures as I've taken on this entire trip so far. But I particularly like this one.

The view was to die for.

Then, up the dome. 

Isn't that awesome?! Anything for a view right?

That's the tower we climbed up before...but now from the Dome. It was pretty exhausting climbing up so high twice, almost in a row, but it was totally worth it. I'm not going to show you the pictures I took of the ceiling of the Duomo closer up because the quality of them, unfortunately, didn't come out so great. You can, however, check Facebook, as I was much more liberal as to which photos I put up there.

The third, and final thing that our ticket (10 euros well spent) allowed us for, was to go inside the smaller cathedral next to the Duomo. To be honest, I don't really know anything about this building, or even if I properly labeled it. I have some researching I need to do. My memories from AP Art History are pretty vague at this point and I am curious about some of the details we saw that I couldn't quite remember much about. 

This building had a great ceiling too though!

At this point, we were starving, and totally deserved lunch. While some of the girls went to meet some school friends for lunch, the rest of us found a cute little caffe to eat in. We were all pretty excited about actually sitting down to eat a meal. Also, the pasta was delicious.

Next it was time to find the Ponta Vecchia. I was thrilled to see water. I love water. We walked across the bridge and did some window shopping. They sell quite a bit of (very expensive) jewelry on the Ponta Vecchia and it was sparkly and quite fun to look at. I did not photograph the jewelry but you can see the bridge.

(This picture was taken from one bridge over later in the day, but much better captures what the Ponta Vecchia looks like. I was there guys!)

We did a lot more wandering around. I can't really describe everything that we happened upon during the expedition, but it was fun to explore a new city a little bit. Also...

that. It was as delicious as it is beautiful.

Confession: I ate gelato AND a cannoli today, but I totally burned off all of it climbing all those stairs. Plus, it's Italy so I can do things like that.

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I think that's all for the overview of the adventures in Florence. It was an awesome glimpse of a city we all want to return to throughout the semester. It was super easy to get there, and not far at all, so I know I will be going back.

It was also nice to arrive back in Siena at the end of the day. As the bus was pulling into the city, I began to recognize places and knew where we were. It was cool feeling like I was arriving back in a place that I was familiar with. 

Of course, this is not to say that I fully know my way around the city, but I am becoming more and more familiar with it. I know how to get to class, and where the grocery store is (more than one actually), and I've been keeping my eye out for more places to eat that I want to try.

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Two more comments before I snuggle into my bed for a night that won't end with an alarm (!!).

1. The Italian word for map is carta. I learned this today when we were getting a map of Florence so we could have a general idea of where we were going. I mention this because when I heard the word for map, I immediately thought of the word, cartographer. It's been a lot of fun noticing connections between words and understanding more derivatives of where certain English words come from. Also, my Latin from high school is finally coming in handy! That, and my very very little bit of Spanish I have from when I went to School No. 12 from Kindergarten through 2nd grade. 

2. My next goal is to work up the courage to try to chat with some of the shop owners around Siena. It's been really cool taking this study abroad thing one step at a time, taking on new challenges, but not trying to go too fast and dive in too deep. I'm already feeling more confident though and being out of my comfort zone is proving to be an immensely positive thing. It may seem unrelated, but I feel more confident in my ASL skills because of this too. I was thinking about situations where I must use ASL to communicate, and it is so much easier for me than trying to use Italian...and I've managed just fine with little to no Italian! Granted, I haven't done much alone, but I'm taking everything in, learning as much as I can, and communicating to the best of my ability. If I can do that in Italian, the same tasks in English can't be too hard, can they?

Italian sisters

So I guess we're going for two posts in one day. This one is just because my Italian host sisters are the cutest and I adore them.

I got an Italian lesson from Arianna and Margharita. They are truly excellent teachers. See, they even got the blackboard out!

(That's Margharita writing)

This is Angelica. She is adorable and gives me big hugs. Also, she loves fruit ninja on my phone. 

And lastly: can we just talk about how fantastic it is that their drawers are decorated by putting dry pasta in between two sheets of glass?!?! The drawers are for napkins etc. but they have pasta decorations. No messing around, guys...I am in Italy.

Intensive Italian Day One

When I first started to think about what about today was significant and worth sharing on this blog, I almost forgot that we started the day with our first 2 hour Italian class. Pretty sure my knowledge of Italian tripled this morning (although that's really not saying much give that I started at 0 with a few random words that have no use out of context).

The class was great though. There are 6 of us that aren't starting with no Italian background. The teacher was super nice and chill about the whole thing, and totally understanding that we couldn't understand the language. We learned a few basic questions and answers, like, "what's your name?" "what brings you to Italy?" "where are you from?" etc. We also talked about a few key phrases that we will be using once the class is taught fully in Italian. These phrases include: I don't understand, repeat that please, how do you say____?, etc.

After this we had a break for lunch. We decided to brave the University of Siena cafeteria. Since we are IES students, we are technically enrolled at the University of Siena this semester, which means that we get a discount at the dining halls. We were all thoroughly confused about what we were doing but it was a good experience. The plan is to learn a bit more Italian and then see if we can figure out how to talk to some of the Italian students. At this point, it seems like we'd just be bothering them if we invited ourselves to sit with them.

We also had gelato. Yes, this was the first time I got gelato in Italy. Yes, it was amazing. Yes, I will be eating regularly...and trying all of the flavors. Yes, I did take pictures of it like a shameless tourist.

After this, we spent a stunning 3 hours at the Italian post office. We had to apply for a "permit to stay" even though we all have visas. I don't quite understand this but I can go with it. Unfortunately, we waited around the post office for a very very very long time. The RA, Camilla (who is absolutely hilarious), wasn't kidding when she said that Italian bureaucracy is super ridiculous. She was actually the one that got to deal with them the whole time. We don't know enough Italian to talk to them about official things (let alone little things), and so we just stood and sat and waited.

The ceiling of the post office was pretty though:

It's a little after 6 here now, but I'm absolutely exhausted. We eat dinner late (8 and a half as my host mom says) and I'm still deciding if I want to go out again tonight. I'm not really feeling it right now. We all need a few hours of R&R before getting back out there and it was raining when I was walking home. Who knows though. Maybe I'll decide in the next few hours that it's just the thing to do. I'll keep you posted...

Megamind in Italian?!?!

Today was another busy day of orientation. I don't want to bore you with how we walked around and got lost and had to go to the post office and all that nonsense. What I do want to do, is take a minute to talk about how great the food is.

I don't think I've spent nearly enough time talking about the food on this blog, and for that, I am deeply ashamed. For lunch, we found a little shop that caught our eye immediately as we were walking down the street. Maybe this will help you to understand why:

It was even more adorable in person, but I feel like a super dorky tourist taking pictures inside of these places so I try to take them quickly and subtly. I know, I'm cool...it's fine.

I got a slice of pizza and a cream filled pastry. I was in heaven. So delicious. Here...just wait a second.

...

It was so good that I took a bite of it before I remembered that I should photograph it to brag to everyone about how great it was. Sorry...ok, not really. You can come to Italy and eat pastries with me any time!

Also, dinner with my host family has been great. It's really nice to have someone cook, and the food is always great. Plus, I've been getting to try new things that I don't know if I would have eaten otherwise. It's definitely one of the advantages of a home-stay!

But I also want to talk a little bit about the two highlights of today.

1. I watched Megamind in Italian and cuddled with my three-year-old host sister, Angelica. It was so peaceful and wonderful after a long day. Plus, I know all the words to Megamind already so it was a fun way to try to pick up a few Italian words. We all know how great Megamind is, so I don't need to go on and on about that :)

2. I finally got up the courage to give my Italian family the gifts I brought them. I have learned a few Italian words so I was able to say that they were gifts from America and then did an even worse job of explaining how important lilacs are to Rochester. I really only said that there are a lot of lilacs around my house but they were very appreciative. The kids were especially excited by the chocolate (obviously) and were thoroughly entertained by the silly putty, which was also extremely entertaining to explain. 

I've taken to pulling out my translation app on my phone when I'm with the kids and trying to communicate just a little bit. I helped Margharita (11yo) with one question on her English homework and Arriana (8yo) thinks it's hilarious whenever I try to translate something, but we're having fun with it.

I think that's all I want to share with you for now, but you can feel free to drool over that pastry for a while...or go watch Megamind. Either way, good choice!

Taking Numbers, Getting Names

I'll admit, the first night in Siena wasn't easy, but that is to be expected when traveling. It's just important to keep in mind that things change as you become acclimated to a new environment. The other important lesson of the day: you don't have to take in ALL OF SIENA in one day. Believe me, we tried....ok not really, but we probably spent a solid eight hours walking around Siena and getting thoroughly and wonderfully lost.

Lemme just show you Siena really quick:

I know right?!? But this picture doesn't even do it justice.

The other thing that is quite notable about this lovely city, is that streets rarely (if ever) go where you think they're going to go. It's one of those things, where you know you are five minutes from your destination, but it takes you 45 because you have to go in all sorts of convoluted circles and backtrack and...oh wait, that's just because I got myself lost. Yep. Headed towards the tower (not the tower you can see in the picture), but the tower in Piazza del Campo because that is how I get back to my apartment, but the streets kept curving everywhere and it took quite a while for me to figure my way back. I did make it though...in case any of you were worried. Don't be. 

Here are a few examples of street views, that may begin to capture why I was having some difficulties with navigation.

So yea...it's pretty gorgeous here. 

The other notable event of the day, was getting an Italian phone. We went in a group of around 6 people and one of our resident assistants came with us (thankfully!). The whole process took around 2 hours and was far more confusing than really is reasonable. But Camilla (the RA) was hilarious. She said that everything is just more complicated here in Italy and that we're just going to have to get used to it. But that's all fine by me. We figured it out, and she was a huge help. And...I just got a new SIM card, which means I'm still carrying around my regular phone. It's almost as if nothing happened!

Walking around was really nice. I can't really say that I've gotten used to where I am in comparison to everything, but I'm definitely making progress. We also split into smaller groups which was nice. The 14 of us are starting to get to know each other...and now that we have phones figured out, are starting to actually be able to communicate with each other, and feel like normal humans again. (That's where I got the title of this post from, if you were curious). The group is really quite small, with only 14 of us, but I do like the dynamic. Everyone is super chill and we all know each other's names already.

I think that is all for now though, I need to get some sleep because we're back to actually having to wake up in the morning....crazy.

Oh...I haven't shown you food yet. What is wrong with me?!?! Let me fix that really quick before I go to sleep.