Honey, Antiques, and 3 Euro Vino

**WARNING**
This post is dangerously long! When I started it like half an hour ago I said "I've been putting off posting since recapping everything that's been going on here is a bit daunting, but I'll try to give a quick sum up of the past week"

It is not quick. Please bear with me.

Last weekend I met up with my friend Erikka from Amherst, who's studying in Florence, and she came with me and some other Siena Schoolers to Montalcino. Montalcino is a beautiful tiny little town south of Siena known for it's fabulous Brunello wine, but we went for the annual Honey Festival. There was samples of a zillion kinds of delicious honey and various other products- honey beer! honey grappa! peanut flavored honey! honey candy! Sadly the bus schedule was not cooperating and we had to rush to catch a bus home after less than 2 hours. But it's definitely good to have an event to attend when you're doing a day trip to such a tiny town; without the Honey Festival we might not have schlepped out to Montalcino.

This weekend was a bit stressful trying to figure out what to do. For most of us, the weekends can be a little awkward if we don't make plans to travel somewhere, since our host families sort of expect us to be out an about, and they make their own plans for the weekend which don't necessarily include us (this Saturday Livio and Olga were participating in an all-day archery competition/picnic). Some pals and I had wanted to go to Bologna but that didn't work out, and so we found ourselves casting about blindly for another day-trip destination as of Friday afternoon. We finally settled on Lucca: a lot of people combine Lucca with nearby Pisa, but the word on the street is that there's not much else to reccommend Pisa besides the leaning tower and so we decided to skip it altogether. Lucca was great; there was an enormous antiques festival going on which we ambled through for most of the morning. After an ecstasy-inducing lunch (we got 4 types of pasta and taste-tested everyone's choices) we walked the city walls, which were completely reconstructed in the 17th century (or something like that). Lucca is filled with people riding bikes, and a wonderful biking/walking path runs along the walls. We wanted to rent bikes but that didn't happen. We did however buy a loaf of the local specialty, buccellato, a sort of anise-raison flavored bun/bread hybrid. We split it uncerimoniously on the train ride back to Siena, the four of us taking turns ripping hunks off with our hands.

This was my first European train experience without my mother's guidance, and it felt great to buy tickets and catch 3 trains each way successfully. We also met a chill Polish girl who's an Erasmus student in Siena, and she was totally hating on the Italian party scene! She told us we should visit her hometown Krakow, where they have real parties. She said, "When I got out here, it's terrible! The clubs close at like 3! At home you go out and can come home at 7, 8 in the morning...I don't know why it's so bad here." Needless to say, we thought this was pretty funny...as Americans, we're usually out a lot earlier that the Italians. Some of my friends get home earlier than their Italian host parents on the weekends! Though it's true that Siena is not really know for it's party culture, I've been really enjoying the more relaxed atmosphere here.

One of the most relaxing and enjoyable moments this week, and something that I really just can't do at home, was when Angela and I decompressed with a bottle of 3 euro wine (don't turn your nose up, it was really good) in the Fortress after finishing our Italian "final exam" on Friday. It was around 5 o'clock and still sunny, and the view from the Fortess of the city is incredible (I'll post a picture soon). We had to fight for bench space with the hordes of Italian couples who drape themselves over the surfaces of all picturesque places, but we snagged a good spot. We complained about our professor, and laughed over the weird things we'd learned in the course of the past 3 weeks. The Italian word for blush (as in the make-up) is "il fard," a word which cannot be said out loud with a straight face. Italians also have a special word for the act of wiping the your plate with your bread; it's called "fare la scarpetta". This has always been my favorite part of meals, I had no idea it was a verb unto itself.

Tomorrow is our first day of "real" classes, and I'm looking forward to it immensely. These past three weeks have been kind of a blur; there've been so many new experiences that I think I woke up practically everyday not knowing what to expect, or expecting to be surprised with something deliciously new and Italian. Now, I'm more used to my host family, the city, the other students, and the culture, and I'm ready to get a more predictable schedule. This is what I'm taking:
-Italian/Culture of Italy (a continuation of what we've been doing the past 3 weeks)
-Photography (I'm realllllly excited for this; haven't done manual photo since high school, but we'll also be working with our digital cameras, so maybe I'll have some good stuff to post eventually!)
-Sociology of Linguistics (I've always wanted to take soc, and wasn't expecting to take it here, but things just worked out...)
-Art History-Iconography (ok, just to give you an idea, here are some key phrases from the syllabus: "the political use of art and propaganda", "social iconography...the symbolism of Food and Feasting, Music and Medicine...love and eroticism", "cryptic subjects in art...da Vinci's Nature symbolism...secret messages of Astrology, magic, hermetism, Alchemy and Kabbalah...")
-and finally, Creative Writing.

OK well I think I've sucessfully overwhelmed anyone who made it to the end of this post with way way way too much information...if you've got a confused/blank expression on your face like I do during much of family dinners, I'm not surprised. When Andreas noticed this particular expression on my own face, he always inquires in broken English,

"You have problem?! What your problem is?!?? Tutto'OK?!? OK?! Tutto'OK?!?!?!?"
to which the proper response appears to be rapid head nodding and repitition of "Si, sisi, si! Tutto'OK! OK! No problem! Tutto'OK!"

So, I hope everyone is tutto'ok back home, all is tutto'ok here...and Olga is asking for help with her English homework.