Could it be spring?!?

So I've been absolutely LOVING the weather in Siena the past couple of days. It's been gorgeous and sunny and warm and all I want to do is sit outside and enjoy it. This desire that we all have to just sit outside and try to get a little bit of color has allowed for some pretty great conversations. This week I've sat on the campo with a number of the other girls on the program and just talked about stuff. It's been super refreshing to be outdoors and just enjoy being in Italy and how beautiful Siena is.

Today, Guisi took us to a delicious sandwich place pretty much 5 feet from my apartment but I never knew about it before. Needless to say, I'll be visiting that place again very soon. After that, we went to a park behind Piazza del Mercato. I had seen it before but I had never known how to get there. We saw some goats and sat in the grass and made daisy chains. It was actually perfect.

Look at those adorable goats. 

Me and Angela with out daisy chains. 

After we left the park, we went to get gelato at a new place that we had heard was awesome but had never been to. The rumors were correct. It was awesome. We also all marched there wearing our daisy chains. I have no regrets.

Also, living in Siena means that the contrada that you are a part of can be a big part of your life. While I'm not a part of the community of my contrada...I'm really just visiting...I see the symbol everywhere. Seeing as the symbol of my contrada is the elephant and elephants are the best animal, it makes me pretty happy every time. This is a picture that I took as we were leaving the park.

Granted, this is just a normal elephant and not the symbol of the contrada but it's still pretty great, and I can pretend. I actually don't know what this particular graffiti means at all but...

This however, is the symbol of my contrada. I found this sculptor on Via Salicotto right near my apartment. I can't believe it took me so long to notice, considering that it's almost directly outside of my door. I guess it just goes to show that the city of Siena always has more to offer. 

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Yesterday for class, we visited Santa Maria della Scala. This is the old hospital of Siena that has now been turned into a museum. I'm going to keep this part brief, but I wanted to mention how neat it was to visit. Our teacher, Silvia, kept mentioning how creepy it was. It was sort of true. This building is absolutely nothing like what you would expect from a hospital. Now, it is home to a lot of important historical art and sculptors, but even picturing the rooms with their original functions, they were almost unrecognizable as a hospital. Also...our medical knowledge is obviously extremely far ahead of the medical knowledge at the time this hospital was functioning. We saw art depicting some pretty bizarre medical practices, but that was all they knew, and they were doing their best.

It's always neat to visit new places in Siena that we hadn't been to yet...and learning about the rich history of the city I live in never fails to amaze me. 

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I'm going to cross my fingers that the weather remains this beautiful. It's absolutely glorious. I just have to get through midterm exams....oops...and then, Spring Break!!