Siena in a Nutshell

(Written Feb. 1st, 2011, posted Feb. 2nd, 2011)
Well, life in Siena for the past month has been pretty relaxing, to say the least. Tierney and I got into a pretty set routine where we'd wake up, eat breakfast, go on a run at the Fortress, shower, grab lunch, run errands, go to the grocery store, I'd make dinner, we'd hang out with the Italians, go to bed, and repeat. It was pretty ideal.
At the beginning of January I put up fliers by elementary schools, playgrounds, and libraries advertising myself as an English/Italian speaking babysitter. I would check the fliers everyday to find my numbers torn off, but yet I received no calls. Finally halfway through the month, I got a call from a woman and we set up an interview for me to meet her and her husband. I went over, met the couple who actually happened to be an Italian woman and her American husband (from Fremont, California no less) and her 4 CHILDREN. She gave me a list of dates that she would need my help, and I left her house that night finally in possession of a job. The kids consisted of two boys, and two girls. The youngest is Ludo, a three year old boy, a five-year-old boy named Lolo (short for Lorenzo), a seven-year-old girl named Elizabetta, and a nine-year-old girl. My first night went smoothly, except for the three-year-old sticking his hands in his brother's dinner and throwing it over the table, and the kids wore me out my second night by playing tag for an hour and a half straight. The kids are really cute and smart though, and I'll get to go back to babysit once I get back from my trip.
I also got really into cooking while living at the mini-res in Siena. I experimented with a lot of chicken and veggies recipes (one of which was taught to me by my host mom), made lots of burgers, perfected quiche, made pancakes from scratch, taco salad (when we were craving mexican), and when we were really craving some comfort food I made biscuits from scratch, mashed potatoes, crispy chicken, green beans, and corn. It was Tierney's favorite while she was homesick.

Homemade pancakes. Nom.

Now Tierney and I are in Paris. We just arrived after 13 hours of traveling. We left Siena at 11 in the morning, took the train to Pisa where our flight was out of, checked out the Leaning Tower of Pisa, took our flight to Paris, and found our way to the hostel. Tierney counted that we were on different forms of transportation ten times today--bus-train-train-train-train-train-airplane-bus-metro-metro. And that doesn't include all the walking we did. We're both dead tired, but are actually full of energy and excitement for this trip! Tomorrow we go Louvre-ing, Paris flea marketing, beret buying, Moulin Rouge-ing, crepe and croissant eating, and just exploring! Should be an adventure!......and hopefully it won't still be raining...

Past few......months. Sorry!

With finals and my family coming to visit, I pretty much stopped writing here all together. My bad!
Let's see....what happened.....
Well, on Thanksgiving weekend I hopped on the bus and went to France to visit my neighbors from Santa Cruz, Jeff and Kelly Brittan! They were staying on the coast of Nice, so I got to see the French Riviera in all it's glory. It was an amazing, relaxing weekend. A weekend much needed. They took me to see the newest Harry Potter, we went to a museum, a villa on the cliffs, and cooked at home and watched movies at night! It was everything I needed and more.

After that it was pretty much just school for a while.

THEN MY FAMILY CAME TO ITALY!
I was so excited for them to come I had a countdown counting the days, hours, minutes, seconds.....that I updated my friends with quite frequently. They came and stayed in Siena for a week (unfortunately when I had finals), but they had fun (hopefully) just wondering around the city. On our last weekend here it snowed in Siena, and not just snow, but a blizzard. That was the day most of my friends were flying out, and I waited with them at the bus stop for 45 minutes and my hair actually froze. You couldn't see more than ten feet in front of you. But, that only lasted one day, sadly.

Siena Snow

Then we were off to Venice! Unfortuantely I caught a pretty bad cold (probably from standing at the bus stop in the snow), so for the entire first day we were there I slept in bed while my family explored. When I was feeling better, we walked around and explored. We went to the market, and walked the loop of the entire city. On our last day it started to rain a lot, and actually flooded! At our Bed and Breakfast water came up to the stairs, and in all the Piazze they put up platforms for people to walk on. Other than that everyone had on thigh-high rainboots. I also discovered that my rainboots leak. Perfect timing.

Venice Floods

The next stop was Verona, where we would be staying for Christmas. We thought we were staying in a hotel, only to discover that they actually placed us in an apartment next door. Which was fine by us because we were still able to enjoy the hotel's breakfast buffet (which included eggs. Yum), but we also had a kitchen to cook dinner! Verona is a small enough town that you can expore it in one day, so we moved slowly. We visited "La casa di Guilietta" (Juliet's house), rubbed her boob (which is supposed to bring you good fortune in love), and took the Rick Steve's walking tour (a personal favorite of my Father's).

Family in Verona!

Christmas morning we ate the breakfast buffet, then headed up to open our presents set on a windowsill below an invisible Christmas tree. My parents bought us long socks, which they used as our stockings. Christmas was small this year, but just being with my family IN Italy was all I could have asked for. I did, however, get homesick for the first time in four months on Christmas eve. Along with my sister I missed the Christmas smells and traditions. I longed for the smell of pine and the taste of eggnog. Instead we heated up apple juice as mock apple cider, all it was missing was  cinnamon!
After Verona, we headed to Florence (Firenze) for a short two nights and one day. Unfortunately, since we were there on a Monday, literally everything was closed. Except for the Science museum, where we ended up. It was full of old watches and globes and surveying tools that my dad loved looking at. The rest of us liked the benches.
Then, my parents skidattled on off to Rome to catch their flight, leaving my sister and I all alone (and actually homeless) in Firenze. We tried to book hostels and hotels in both Firenze and Siena, but because it was close to New Years, everything was booked up. My last resort was Paola, my host mom, who graciously let us stay in her place for a low fee.
We spent a quiet New Year's Eve in Siena, where we went and got apperativos (appetizers and a drink), went to the Irish Pub, then headed to the "Il Campo" where there were thousands more people than I expected. They had a HUGE concert, and the campo was full to the brim. At midnight they shot off fireworks (which scared the flying pigeons), and people danced and sang all night.
On the 2nd, we were able to move into our apartment, and I kicked off the night by baking a quiche! My sister and I have gotten into our roles, I cook and she bakes. A perfect match. Other than that, I've put up fliers all around Siena for work, and now I'm just sitting staring at my bank account until I get a job! Oooooh....being broke is just lovely! At least I'm broke in Italy! (Being in Italy always seems to give a silver lining to a bad situation, so I guess I can't be that depressed about it!).
Ciao for now!

QUICHE! Pre and Post-Oven