Goodbye, Siena!

I leave Siena in less than five hours! I can't believe it. This week has been very good though. I had classes both Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday was a really fun day. There are two main tourist attractions in Siena: the Duomo and Piazza del Campo. We decided that it was pretty pitiful that after two months we hadn't been inside the Duomo yet. So we did that on Wednesday. After that, we enjoyed lunch and some gelato. I went home after that to finish writing a paper and then I went on a run. Daniela came home and we had dinner together then had our own little Family Home Evening (it had been planned for Monday, but we had to reschedule because of my class). After opening exercises, I shared a scripture and thought and then we enjoyed our refreshments (pears from dinner) and watched Harry Potter. It was a very fun night!

Yesterday was my last day in the kitchen. I had two different sessions, one with each cook, so it was pretty nice. The morning session wasn't a class, we just prepared a going away lunch for a group of students (from Utah, actually) that are leaving today. So it was just me, Nando, and Marqious (the man who dropped the chocolate cake). These kinds of lunches are fun because there aren't students to teach or anything so I get to do a lot of cooking. (The picture above is of me, Nando, and Letizia!)

Last night Luisa and I had a class of 8 students. I mentioned to her last week that I had really loved one of the dishes we made about a month ago, so she made sure to put it on the menu just for me since it was my last night. It was a good dinner! My dish is called Malfatti Grattinati (I think). It's a very good spinach and cheese dish, topped with two different sauces. Mmmmmm. The dessert was delicious, but unfortunately is had raisins soaked in brandy. I had been in charge of preparing the ingredients for the dessert, and Luisa had pointed out the cupboard that had the brandy in it. I was hoping the it would be clearly marked, but it wasn't. None of the bottles had the word "brandy" on them. I just stood there trying to figure out the Italian names. Luisa saw me and started laughing because I looked so clueless. Then when she realized the dilemma we would be facing when I came time to eat the brandy raisins, she got worried. I asked if she could do a part without brandy raisins, but she told me to just spit them out when I tasted them. Unfortunately, I don't know what that taste would be, so I just dug around all of the raisins. When the class was over, I asked if we could take a picture together. She insisted on sitting down for the picture because I'm so much taller than her (she actually compared me to the letter "l" last night because I'm so long and tall, apparently). She gave me a hug and a kiss as I and as I was leaving I said, "Vi voglio bene!" (I love you guys!) Luisa hadn't heard, so her friend, Mariella, told her what I had said. I was almost out of the building when all of a sudden I heard someone yelling, "Anch'io! Hillary! Anch'io!" (Me too! Hillary! Me too!) She came running after me with her arms wide open to hug me. She told me to email her when I got home and tell her that everything went okay getting home. She is so funny, and I definitely learned a ton from her. Every time she'd teach me something new she'd say, "Did you get that Hillary? You have to do that when you go home. And you have to tell everyone you had a really good teacher!" She was definitely an excellent teacher and I'll miss her!