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.

Setting My Place at the Family Table

Today Annalisa asked me to set the table. Let me tell you why this is important:

Living with a host family means sharing intimate space with a unit of people who talk a lot, fight sometimes, have loud phone conversations, hog the bathroom, watch their favorite TV shows on high volume, take trips together, have friends over, and everything else. Living with them means constantly walking a line between inserting yourself into parts of their life where there didn't used to be a 20-year-old American girl before. And sometimes it's awkward.

It's safe to assume that the Martinis don't usually spend a lot of time fussing over their spot at the beach, worried that a certain palid someone will fry in the Italian sun. And most of the year, 10 year old Olga has her own room, and Mom and kids don't all share a bathroom to politely privatize their second one for a houseguest who drinks more milk than all of them combined and takes longer-than-average showers.

As much as I'm part of the Martini household, being such a close observer of their lives reminds me constantly that I'm not actually a part of their family. When Olga and Livio come home, Annalisa hugs them both, slowing kisses them each on the forehead, then her hands on their shoulders and asks them about their day. It's adorable and endearing, but also reminds how far I am from my own family. Annalisa scolds Livio for sleeping too late and berates Olga leaving clothes and shoes strewn across the floor of the room they're now sharing, but would never comment on the state of my room or on my sleeping habits. When she warns Olga to stop taking bread because she'll get fat, she pushes bread-and pasta-and meat!-and cheese!!! towards me with an encouraging smile.

Tonight I sat at the dinner table in the kitchen as Annalisa prepared dinner and chatted with a friend who had come over. I felt awkward, holding my book and alternately trying to listen to their conversation and look like I didn't care if I had no idea what was going on. I'm always doing this; trying to be a part of their family life without disrupting it. So when Annalisa looked up from her slicing and dicing, halted her rapid conversation and spoke a slow sentence simply telling- not asking- me to set the table...well, I was pretty delighted. It means having a reason to be in the kitchen with her and her friend and her family, it means doing something useful instead of just adding another place setting and another set of laundry to her household duties.

I counted the number of places correctly: one for Uncle Andreas at the foot of the table, regardless of whether he's present at the time of dinner or not. One for Annalisa's friend who said her name too fast for me to catch, and one for Annalisa beside her. Livio at the head of the table. And, as usualy, my spot is next to Olga.

Benvenuta

Haven't quite figured out how to operate my voltage converting thingy yet, so I'll keep this short as my battery is about to croak:

I made it here!!! This was the information given to me about my host family:

"Annalisa move to Siena in July 2007; she fully Sienese in any case...she has two children (ages 14 and 10). Both children shoot archery. Livio practices kung-fu, and Olga does rythmic gymnastics. Annalisa works in a school or neuropathy in Fiesole and has a herbal remedy store in Siena's Piazza del Campo. When she was younger she had four American students in her home. She loved the experience and wanted to repeat it along with her children."

Fantastico!

Intensive Italian classes begin Monday, but for the moment I'll be watching "Honey" in Italian with Olga...