Pat-pat-pat your weave, ladies

Finally! The end of the laundry list! I know you're all very excited.

Well, I'm here in Siena and I am LOVING it. Siena and Florence have always been fighting against each other in wars, and once the Renaissance started revolutionizing everything Siena kinda took a backseat while Florence exploded into the capital of the Renaissance. The city isn't very big, and when the plague came through it ravaged all the people, who therefore couldn't change the layout/architecture of the city because they were dead. Thus the city pretty much looks like it would've looked 500 years ago. One of our favorite things to do is to go to the main square, the Piazza del Campo, and people watch. It's fun to see all the people - old people eating gelato, people napping in the sun, teenagers with their over-the-top PDA, and of course the little tiny kids who run around chasing the pidgeons. Audrey always insists we go to the Campo to take pictures of the people, especially the little kiddies. Creeper. "I just love people. Don't you??"

I really lucked out on my living situation. My roommate, Somers, and I get along really well. We have a lot in common. We even have the same toothbrush, which is kinda weird. We didn't really know each other at all before this, but I feel like we're pretty good friends. Unfortuanely for her, she has to listen to my little gripes when we get home, but she's still talking to me, so I guess that's a good sign. My host family is awesome. It's just Paola and Marco, but they are super nice and easy-going. I feel bad because I'm usually gone off to school before they wake up and then I don't get home until an hour or two before dinner, which is at 8pm every night. We have a fun time at dinner, though. They don't speak a lick of English, so it's all Italian, all the way. I feel like my comprehension has gotten a lot better. Marco and I have a fun banter back and forth at dinner because he picks on me for being so tall. He told me "it will make it hard for you to find a husband." It's just fun. Paola doesn't let us help with dinner at all. We keep wanting to help because we're American and we want to be polite and not be an imposition. But no. No setting the table, no serving ourselves, no clearing the table, nothing. It's an Italian thing, apparently. And she gives us so much food! Oh man. Every night after dinner I just want to explode, but the food is so good I can't help it.

It still seems weird to me that I'm taking classes here. We live outside of the city walls, and it takes me about 25 min to walk to the Campo. It takes another 7-10 min to get to the DA (Dante Alighieri, the school). And of course all of Italy is one giant walk uphill so I'm usually sweaty by the time I get there. My class schedule is nice, though. I'm only taking 12 credits - Italian 321 (3 cred), Eng 355 (3), Humanities 201 (3), an online religion class about the history of the LDS church in Italy (2) and a one credit class called "cultural proofs" which basically just requires me to do one Italian activity (like ask locals to teach me a song or look at art in a small church) a week and then write a one page paper about it. The coursework isn't too heavy, but I feel like our time is always spoken for in terms of extra trips and lectures. I really enjoy it, though.

Last weekend we went to Florence/Firenze for the first time. We didn't really do anything there except walk around and "get oriented." I wished we would've been able to go into the Academia or one of the Uffizi galleries, but I think some of us are planning on going back next weekend. We went up to a lookout and got a great view of the city and the hills of Fiesole:

Yesterday we went to San Gimignano and Volterra. We didn't have much time at either place, but both were very cute old towns. We climbed to the top of the highest tower in San Gimignano and had the most amazing view of the area. When we got back to Siena, we went to the Campo where we found that the city was honoring the Lupa contrada. They had a procession of the flag bearers from each of the contrade that competed in this year's Palio and we saw two flag spinners from Lupa do their thang. It was soooo cool. There were two guys in their get ups twirling flags and throwing them and catching them and stuff. If you've ever seen the movie Under the Tuscan Sun, the part when the Polish boy gets hit in the head with the flag, that's basically what we saw. Minus the injury. All that stuff takes place in Siena. The Palio is a big deal here. It culminates with a horserace around the Piazza del Campo twice a year, as it has been run for the past 350+ years. The entire city is divided into neighborhoods, contrade, and each contrada has it's own colors, animal and patron saint. And everyone has a contrada. It's like if everyone in the US was born with a devout loyalty to an NFL or NBA team that they support and cheer on until they die. And probably even after that. Each contrada has their own contrada fountain, museum and church. Diehard. You should probably wikipedia the Palio. It's like a religion. Seriously. Seriously.

Speaking of religion, we went to church here for the second time today. The branch is tiny. There are probably fewer than 20 people, including children. Today in RS there were only two other women besides the teacher who weren't with our group. And one of those was the RS pres. One of the elders is the branch pres. and the whole meeting is conducted in Italian. It's a really great branch. Everyone is so nice and they seem to be glad that we're there, if only that our group is like a choir. We sang We Thank the O God for a Prophet at FHE last week and it sounded amazing. Like gave me goosebumps awesome. We have just the right balance of sopranos and altos. And one bass. Not bad for only having two boys with us. Maybe I should learn the tenor part for the hymns. Inni, as they're called in Italian. Oh and I was asked to say the closing prayer in sac meeting last week, and I said it in Italian! It was terrifying and I was shaking like crazy but I was so glad I did and I think the members really appreciated that I had decided to honor their branch and language even though there were more Americans in the congregation than Italians. It felt really good.

I can't believe I'm actually here. I can't believe all of this is acutally happening. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. I love Italy. I love being able to understand people when they speak Italian. I love speaking Italian. I love Italian food. I love the idea of "dolce far niente / how sweet to do nothing" while sitting in the Piazza del Campo. I love gelato. I love window shopping everywhere I go. I love that I've purchased four scarves already. I love seeing multiple ridiculously attractive Italian men every day. I love seeing multiple ridiculously attractive Italian women every day. I love the walking the streets and seeing the contrada's colors on lampposts and flags to mark their territory. I love Siena.

I love my life.