Thursday, June 21, 2012

Welcome to Siena!

We finally arrived in Siena on Sunday.  It felt so good for all of us to arrive and settle in a bit. We unpacked, got groceries, and set up our mini apartment and kitchen with all of our things.  I am living with two lovely ladies named Jen and Missy. I am enjoying getting to know them and all my other classmates.




I am in a class with four other students. One is a 30 year old from Seattle, one is with our group from UIC, and the other two are with College of Dupage.  I love our morning teacher, Guisanna.  She is young, fun, and speaks less English than I do Italian, but that has made our classes challenging and worthwhile.  We are constantly speaking in Italian, making mistakes, but learning from them. I have never enjoyed learning a language more. :)

Siena is beautiful.  It's been REALLY hot here recently, but today it "cooled down" to 83 degrees. Ha. We are surrounded by rolling hills and beautiful view of the countryside. Siena has more gelato than necessary, but I'm NOT complaining. Our walk to school is about 10 minutes, and the walk to the nearest plaza is 2 minutes.  We are close to everything: markets, grocery stores, gelato, coffee... and so on.

Sunday night we had dinner with some Italian ladies from a nearby university.  We had dinner with them at a beautiful outdoor restaurant, complete with incredible food and wine.
Monday most of our classmates came over to our apartment, hung out, played cards, and ate gelato.  Gelato is a theme, if you haven't noticed. This day I bought an espresso maker and I have been making my own coffee since. I am very proud of that (though it's not hard at all so I should not take any pride in it).
Tuesday we had both of our classes (Italian Language and Italian Culture) and were invited to a dinner at winery with some of the locals we had met on Sunday.



Wednesday was laundry day.  A bunch of us went out for Chinese and gelato and ended up sitting in Piazza Del Campo for the evening people watching and star gazing.

Life is simple but sweet. I am glad we are settled in Siena for awhile.  No longer am I living out of a suitcase. I am getting more comfortable with getting myself around Siena and the main Piazza.

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