Eccomi!

Salve! Here's your prodigal blogger back to fill in an even longer gap. Two weeks--time's just moving along here, folks. I'm starting to get a bit nervous about returning, but that's a different story for a different post. Today, I have some exciting adventures to share. The first week was just a lot of school. I took my oral and written midterm exams in Italian (which went abbastanza bene) and had my first day "on the job" at Campansi, the nursing home I'm working at for my sociology class. I got to see a large part of the home gather for one of their monthly gatherings. This time the women from the division I'll be working with sang traditional Sianese songs for the other patrons and some visitors to celebrate the coming of spring. You know I loved that! I was also able to interact with some of the guests which is always good for my Italian.

After that busy work week, I had a week in vacanze. Wow! It was so much fun! I can't explain to you the overwhelming feeling of gratefulness that I got, especially during this past week. I am constantly appreciative for the opportunity to be here in Italy and to be having the life experiences here, but as a born planner, I can honestly say that I'm not sure I've ever been so content with my place in life before. To be a young woman in Italy now! I keep having this image of me as an old woman thinking back to this time in my life. But for the low-down, I'll split the stories into two entries. I still have some homework to finish up and there's too much to even write the gist of it all, so here's the first bit:

My friend Elizabeth and I took a night bus to Salerno, arriving there at 7 AM exhausted and unsure where to go. After an unnecessarily long time and several stops for directions, we finally found our hostel where we stayed for three nights and were able to meet some great people. The first day we explored Salerno and planned the rest of our trip. I am glad to report that fortune was our friend this whole trip and even when things seemed to be going poorly, they always turned out for the better. For instance, Saturday night we looked for a place to eat in a ravenous state, finally stumbling on a place after a while of searching that we weren't sure of. We ended up making great friends, returned for our last night, and ate well (for a discount!).

Our second day we spent in Pompei. What a trip! We decided to skip the audioguides and try to discover the best sites on our own--and a little help from Rick Steves. While walking aimlessly, I was lucky enough to make the acquaintance of Vincenzo, a well-informed security guard who had already worked at the ruins for 35 years. Vincenzo took it upon himself to show us the best sites, including those that weren't open to the public! I took in the sun on top of one of the houses, touched an original marble table, and stood in the best preserved houses which, according to Vincenzo, will never be open to the public. Here's a picture of us that Vincenzo took for us; please notice that we are behind a fence that is meant to keep people out from standing next to the completely original fountain! We even got an extra hour of exploration in his company. After sharing a coffee and our goodbyes, Elizabeth and I caught the train feeling that we had just had the best encounter with the ancient city possible.

The next day was split between Paestum and Amalfi. We got up close and personal with the Greek ruins in the morning and missed the first train back to Salerno. As Lady Luck would have it, we found a buffalo farm and tasted fresh mozzarella di bufala--the milkiest cheese and one of the many specialties of the region. After returning, we immediately took the hour-long bus trip to Amalfi. Talk about breath-taking! Not only from the gorgeous view but also the driving. The road clearly wasn't made for buses but somehow we got there. Elizabeth and I sat on the pier taking in the sunset on the coast (which can be seen above), explored a bit of the town, then returned.

The next morning we took a trip to Napoli. What chaos! It was so different than anywhere I had ever been before and have this feeling like I really need to return to understand more of the place. Sadly, we overlooked that we couldn't get into the one museum we had planned on seeing so instead spent a few hours soaking in the city. We sampled some great pizza & svogliatella (a pastry)--more yummy specialties of Campagna. My synopsis of the region: You can get lost quite easily and can meet some wonderful people, but you can NEVER go wrong with the food! We caught a train back to Siena in the afternoon, quite satified and thoroughly drained from our adventures.

I'll stop here for now, but don't forget to check out my pictures and keep looking for the second leg of the trip where I trugged on alone into Umbria, the region next to Tuscany.

When in Rome, be a tourist.

Ciao a tutti! It's amazing how things really are getting busier all the time. While me being busy here is not even closely representative of the chaos of a normal spring semester, I'm having trouble checking off my "to-do" list. There's so much to do and to see that it's hard to ignore the constant pressure to do them before it's already time to come home. But again, this is really less of a complaint and more of an observation of my "difficult" life abroad.

I've been traveling a lot more on the weekends than I imagined I would, but I'm trying to find a balance. Last weekend I went with some friends to Rome and had a truly fantastic time. Leaving early nella mattina, we boarded the bus to Rome and arrived around noon. Getting oriented, we made a bee-line to Vatican City. It was truly breath-taking to see some of these masterpieces and to be able to tell you "what it smells like in the Sistene Chapel" (Good Will Hunting). I also really loved walking around in St. Peter's Basilica, but my favorite part of the day was when the 3 other girls and I ate some of the best gelato EVER and soaked in the sun, the people, and the experience in the Piazza del Papa'.

After checking in at the hotel, we took a nap before going to dinner. All weekend we ate wonderfully (and cheaply) thanks to Rick Steves and some other guidebooks! After dinner we went on a grand tour of the city at night. My host parents were surprised about how much I actually did see in just a day and half, which made me feel really good. :) But among this crazy tour was the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, and the Fountain of the Four Rivers (my favorite!). I didn't see them in the day time, but everything looked GORGEOUS at night. Surprisingly, we also had some opportunities to speak in Italian. Rome has a bit of the same feeling as New York City with a big tourist fingerprint. I heard more English than I had in a while and couldn't wait to get back to Siena and Italian.

Sunday morning we split up for a few hours and my friend Julissa and I went back to the Vatican to see the Pope. The crowd was insane! He said a prayer, talked a little about "La Festa Delle Donne" (which I'll explain later), and made some shout-outs in German, French, English, Spanish, and Italian. Then we went to meet up with the other travellers at the Colosseum. After a 10 minute wait for a ticket (incredible!), we got our tickets per gratis. That's right--FOR FREE! La Festa Delle Donne, or the Day of the Women, was created after the Women's Rights Movement. While I question if it's any less commercial than Valentine's Day, it was certainly an unexpected and very welcomed surprise. But getting back to my sight seeing, I loved the Colosseum and the Roman Forum! Standing there in the remnants of everyday life from centuries ago definitely sits among my favorite moments of the trip.

Tomorrow, the women of the school are going on a retreat of sorts to another agriturismo but this time in Maremma, the beach region of Tuscany. We'll be visiting a park and going on a wine tasting and I've heard rumors that the food is out of this world! You'll get another update later. But for more pictures of Rome, check out "Le Fotografie" under links.

Buona giornata!

Studio e Imparo

My terza settimana of classes are nearly over. Italian is same-old, same-old...or as much as it can be when you're learning all kinds of things all the time. Every morning my class starts with Roberto, as per usual. Language class is only 3 times per week. The other two days (Wednesday and Friday) are my History of Siena class. Since I came back to Italy specifically for this city and spend a fair amount of my free time learning more about it, I think it'd be fair to claim that this class was designed for me. It's been raining a lot this week but se ferma, we'll go on a walk to see some things that we talked about on mercoledi.

Scrittura creativa is Monday mornings and Wednesday evenings with Jeff, the author. You may or may not have read his first libro--he's written two--which I'm reading now. He's a fun character and I love the way he thinks, or rather, the way he makes me think. Mondays we turn in our assignments and have class discussions on a particular topic for the week. He uses all types of media and an array of literature so we can discover how to use a particular construction well. Sometimes it's explicit. Sometimes it's not. But working towards "getting it" is part of the fun. Then on Wednesdays we take turns reading ours allowed and offer critism to improve the piece. We've done 2 assignments, and I am always thinking that they can't get any harder, but somehow they do.

Then there's sociologia. I'm the only student in this class so "group discussions" are more personal, which you know I love! I'm learning about the history and methodology of sociology, but then the second part of the class is an internship out in the community. I can either work with a group of disabled or at the local nursing home. I'm having a hard time deciding because the opportunities would be so different and would offer me very different experiences of the city, but I'm convinced that I can't make a bad decision here. Either way, I'd have a great chance to observe and even participate in a specific part of life in Siena and practice my Italian. As these points were my goals for coming back to Siena, I can't go wrong. I've visited both places and am going back to the nursing home again today to get to know a little more about the atmosphere and what I might be doing if I choose that location. I'm going alone and while I'm excited, I'm still a bit nervous since there will be no one I can rely on for a translation.

This solidarity has actually made me think a lot about what it means to study abroad and how different it is from living negli stati uniti. For the first time I am truly away from my support system. While I am fortunata and am able to keep contact with people back home through lots of modes (including this blog!), you all aren't here with me, experiencing what I live every day. But then, I am thankful to have a great group of amici here who are going through all the same struggles and adventures. Still, they don't know my past besides the antecdotes that come up in conversation. So I have realized recentamente that the only link between my past and my present...is me. I know that sounds funny and so obvious, but it makes living life now so different than how I've lived before. But then again, I guess that is the point.

In other news:

* Of the 17 fountains, I have seen 15. The other 3 are in private giardini--which I'm trying to get in to see. Vediamo!

* In completely unrelated news, I got an internship in D.C. this summer with the American Psychological Association to work in research labs. And, needless to say, I'm really excited! I go about a month after I return to the States so I think that it will help reassimilate back to being in America.