Siena: The First Few Days

Sept 8


Hopefully now that I've made it to Siena I'll be able to relax and get into somewhat of a routine, which will make writing on this easier. Even though I'm no longer in Rome, I had to post the “Lessons Learned in Rome”, which Katelyn and I kept adding to in a little book as our journey progressed. Hopefully Siena will be pretty painless, which means I won't even have to have a “Lessons Learned in Siena” list.
 
After dragging all our luggage thirty minutes across town (walking), Katelyn checked into her mini-residence (much like the dorms) and I tried looking for a place to stay. Unfortunatley, there were only three hotels in all of Siena available for the night, two of them pretty far outside the city, and the other for 80 euros. After the night before I did NOT want to spend anymore money, so once again I thought I'd be homeless for a night. Luckily, the guys working at Katelyn's residence were nice enough to let me pay only 25 euro to stay in her room for the night (after much begging).
 
We basically spent all day meeting people from the program and exploring Siena. Since I'm doing a homestay, and the majority of the people are doing apartments and mini-res, I wanted to meet as many of the students as I could in the first few days before I left, just so I could get to know them a little bit better. Hopefully once classes start, I'll be able to hang out at the mini-res or apartments for a bit so I get some relaxing time in, before I go back home and am forced to speak only Italian for the rest of the night.
 
The day of my orientation, I went and got my Italian cell phone (which if you purchase a calling card, you can call me and it will be FREE for me! message me for the number), then got to meet my host mom! Her name is Paula, but her daughter Elisa picked me up from the hotel, along with my roommate Rachel. Elisa was so funny, and really, the only way to describe her is just as "jolly". She sang to Shakira's “Waka Waka” as she drove me home, and even did the dance. Elisa speaks a little bit of english, but Paula speaks NONE what-so-ever. Paula made made fried chicken for lunch, but it was much different than American fried chicken. It was pounded so it was very thin, then breaded with something that tasted like a cornmeal. It almost reminded me of abalone and the way I've had that cooked. It was delicious, but I was soooo full and then she kept pushing more food on me, like salad, bread, cheese, proscuitto, wine, and fruit. As my friend Julie says “Italian moms have no concept of fullness”.
 
After lunch Elisa took us on a walk back to the center of the city where she and her boyfriend of 16 years own a wine shop (literally right next to the Piazza del Campo). It was so cute, I can't wait to buy wine from her to take home to friends and family. For dinner Paula made tortellini con broda (tortellini in a broth), with a zucchini frittata (zucchini is my gag food and I ate every single bite. I didn't want to offend her, so I swallowed the bites whole, barely letting them touch my tongue), then she pulled out bread and vegetables with cheese and more proscuitto and fruit. Italian mothers truly have no concept of fullness.
 
Throughout the dinner Paula had the television on and was watching “Il Milionario”, which is the Italian version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”. After dinner I was finally able to unpack, start settling in, and start uploading pictures! I'm so excited to post more! I just wish I had some photo editing software on this computer....though I guess Siena is so beautiful that it doesn't need any editing. Che bella!

The view from my balcony.