A Day with the Deeres

Siena has been very rainy all week. It's the same every day: overcast in the morning, sunny for the four hours that I'm in class, then rainy once I start walking around the city. When I got out of class yesterday at noon, Daniela and I went to a small restaurant and got sandwiches. She had to go back to the school for classes and I went exploring. One of my good friends from high school, Jackson Deere, and his parents are in Italy and they were in Siena yesterday. We had talked about meeting up and having dinner together, but I have a hard time finding internet connection and the headset I use with my computer broke, so I had no way of contacting them. I was on my way back to the school to do some work, but I decided to take a different route and explore some of the smaller streets I hadn't seen yet. I was walking up one of them when I saw Jackson and his parents! I caught up to them and we spent the rest of the day together. They had been trying to find me for quite a while. They had called Rita several times, but she doesn't speak any English and they don't know Italian so they hadn't gotten very far. Then they had gone to the school looking for me but I wasn't there. We had dinner reservations at 7:00 so we had a few hours to walk around the city. We went inside the baptistry of the Duomo and it was beautiful!

Dinner was delicious, but I don't think I have ever been so full! First they brought out bread. We were all hungry and the bread was really good so we ate a lot. After about three baskets of bread, the antipasti came out. There was some bruschetta, a salad, and a mushroom/eggplant/ham concoction that was actually really good! Then came the main courses: I had pasta with fresh tomatoe and pesto, but there were also gnocchi (potatoe dumplings) with a cheese sauce. Then I had some wild boar that Jackson's dad had ordered and some pork that had been flavored with honey. After that I didn't think that I could possibly eat anything else. I was wrong. Jackson's dad insisted on ordering desserts. We got three: a chocolate souffle, meringue with ice cream and caramlized strawberries, and a home-made cone with vanilla cream. We staggered out of the restaurant about two and a half hours later and walked to the car.

It was too late for me to take the bus home so I was supposed to direct Jackson's dad to Rita's house. That was a problem. I have only driven from the city to Rita's house twice by bus. Both times I was very tired and didn't pay very much attention to directions. We drove around in the dark for about an hour. After taking a dozen different roads and somehow ending up in front of the same soccer field, we asked for directions. I went into a McDonald's and asked a woman if she knew where my street, Strada di Pian del Lago, was. She gave me directions that led us right back to the soccer field! We went back to the McDonald's and I asked a man in the parking lot. He gave me different directions that led us right to Rita's. It was amazing. I got back pretty late and Rita was waiting up for me. I tried to do some of my homework because I had been given a lot, but I didn't do very much. After about 8:30 here I start losing cognitive power. My homework wasn't a problem, after I told my teacher about last night's adventures she understood and said that if I was Italian I wouldn't have done it at all!

First Day in Italy

Yesterday, my first full day in Italy, was wonderful! We had to be at the Dante Alighiere center at 8:00 in order to take a test which would place us, according to level, in classes. Zia Rita ("Aunt" Rita) prepared us a breakfast of cereal, yogurt, and some cream-filled pastries. We caught the 7:2o bus which took us to Piazza Gramsci (a piazza on the edge of the center of the city where all the busses come. From there, the walk is about ten minutes to Dante Alighiere. Siena is beautiful! I can't wait to explore! We took a written and an oral test and then waited in the student room for our classes to start. For some reason, I was placed in the same class as Daniela, who served a mission in Italy. There are five students in our class: me, Daniela, and three girls from Switzerland. It is rather intimidating, but I enjoy it!

Each day this week we will have two classes. The first is with Andrea, the Italian giant. He is very, very tall. Our second teacher is Letizia, she is a cute girl. This afternoon, I will have an individual lesson with her and I am looking forward to it. After our lessons yesterday we had a tour of the school and of the city by "Piccolo" Andrea. His name is Andrea, too, but he is very short. He compensates for his lack of height by talking very loudly. Andrea left us at the Piazza Gramsci and we were free to go. Daniela and I walked around the city for several rainy hours. We went to the Duomo and the Piazza del Campo (the main piazza of the city). We were starving after walking for so long so I bought my very first Italian gelato. It was delicious! I got pistacchio and "bacio" flavored. (a bacio is an italian candy consisting of chocoloate and hazelnut).

There is another girl living with Rita. She is from Germany and her name is Martina. She speaks very little Italian and a little English. We were supposed to meet her at the Piazza Gramsci at 5:00 so she could show us which bus to take to get back to Rita's. Unfortunately, she was a couple minutes late and we missed it. We had to wait an hour for the next one. Normally, that would have been just fine. However, it was raining and we were hungry and the jet lag had started taking effect. We finally made it home and Rita had dinner ready for us. Her food is wonderful, but mealtimes with her are tricky. Especially if you aren't very hungry. Fortunately, we were starving last night. She doesn't eat with us, but she sits and watches us eat. Once we've finished something she offers us more and doesn't really wait for an affirmative response before serving more. I worry about offending her when I don't want more. I now have several phrases that work quite nicely when I am no longer hungry: "Sono sazia" means I am satisfied, "E' basta" means that's enough, and "Non c'e piu' spazio"means there is no more space/room. Daniela and I were so tired that after dinner we went to our room, read and wrote for a little bit, and went to bed early.