I think I have finally settled into Italy. School has started and I like it a lot. I am taking 4 courses: Italian Language, Italian Cross Culture, Art History, and Cooking. I have Italian 5 days a week for four hours, with a few six hour days thrown in. It's a lot to sit through, with the first half being grammer, and the second half conversation. Luckily, I have a great teacher. He is very animated and makes class fun. He has a great sense of humor so that helps the class go by much faster. My class is international- we have people from Africa, Japan, Norway, Brazil, Mexico and Chile in my class as well as many Americans from my program andl a program from UMass- so he doesn't speak English to us. We have a break half way through class and many students as well as professors go to a nearby cafe and get something to drink and eat. We have a half hour so it's a nice break. The coffee here is great! I am really loving it. The only bad part about the drinks here as well as some of the food you get in cafes (not restraunts) is that it is luke-warm. Because most Italians do not get food or coffee to go and have to pay to sit, most Italians eat or drink at a bar. This is why the drinks and food are not hot, it makes it easier to eat and drink quickly. Luckily, the place we go during break, Internet Train, makes coffee to go and makes it hot!

I think I am really going to enjoy my Art History course. It concentrates on portraits during the Reniassance period- who portraits were painted of, why they were painted and how depictions changed from the start to the end of the period. My teacher is amazing! My teacher is a short, balding italian man. Really- he's probably just over 5 feet. He has a wealth of information in him though, and he always tells us that he is a 'art-history juke box...push his nose and make him play'!! He wants us to be really involved in class and ask a lot of questions. He also is really funny and makes class enjoyable. Our first trip was to the Siena city hall, the Piazza di Publico. It's a palace really. The inside of it's all painted, and he explained to us how art was and is used as propoganda, for religion, politics, ect. There's one fresco that depicts the consequences of good and bad governmet- one side has the king surrounded by virtues and shows the village people all happy and dancing in the streets. The opposite side shows the opposite, a devil sitting on a throne, buildings burning, wars ect. What struck me as really interesting is that the evil side was really damaged and when I asked why, he explained to us that in the middle ages, it was custom to try to destroy images of evil. So people had thrown rocks and spat on this painting!

Cooking will be a lot of fun. I only have this class for 5 weeks. We make full four course meals- anti-pasta, pasta, meat and then desert. She gives us the recipes at the end of the 5 weeks so hopefully when I come home I will be able to prepare a full Tuscan meal! In the future we will be making italian meatload, gnocchis, lasgana, raviolis, and meat dishes. We are usually in class from 6 to 9 or 10 at night. We prepare the meal, and then eat it. Yum! Italian cross-culture is what is sounds like- comparing American and Italian culture. We have to watch videos, meet with Italian University Students, visit locations around Siena (one time we are going Chianti tasting!) and write papers. This week we have to observe relationships, specifically romantic relationships. We are supposed to write strict observations, then interpret our interpretations saying what we think happened and why, and then evaluate this behavior based on our values. It should be interesting.

I am having a great time with my roomates. Technically, I only have one. Carolyn is my only roomate, but usually we hang out in Erin and Hannahs room next door. We usually eat family-style dinners together which I like a lot. We spend a lot of our time together, and are planning many trips together. On Sunday, we went to San Gimignano, a town nearby which is famous because it has 13 towers in it. Sadly, our first attempt to use the Italian bus system did not work out as well as hoped, and we arrived 4 hours later than we intended to. By the time we go there, it wsa very cold, and being that it was a late Sunday afternoon, many shops were closed. I would love to go back because the city was pretty, and surrounded by gorgeous Tuscan country side. This weekend, we are going to Florence on Saturday with our program, but then Hannah, Erin, and 2 other of our friends, Carolyn (not my roomate, another Carolyn) and Lisa, are staying over Saturday night and coming back Sunday. There are many other trips in the making including Venice for Carnivale, Rome, Pompei, and possibly Prauge!

So as I have said I have settled in alright. I am still getting used to Italians which has been a little difficult. It's been my first impression that Italians are very superficial and care way too much about clothing. It seems that one must always be dressed up to go out, and if not you definitely get stares walking down the street. Obvious, up and down stares. Also, Italians are very pushy which is hard because the shops are tiny and you often get pushed through or run into. While i have met some very friendly and helpful Italians, most seem annoyed to have us here. We have been told several reasons for this. Many people have told us that in general, Italians in the North are much snobbier than the ones in the South. We have been told that this is because the North is much richer than the south. Siena was actually at one time the most important city in Europe, bigger than Paris or London due to it's location on the Francegian road- the road from the where the Crusades were happening in Jerusalem to Portugal. Siena was right in the middle. Because of this, it became very rich and became known as The City of Banks. Many people say it because of long lasting pride of this that people are rude. Another reason is that Siena is split into many Contradas. They are like neighborhoods, each with it's own mascot. I live in the Dragon Contrada. People do not venture far from their contrada- they go to school, bars, restraunts, church in the their contradas and often marry someone from within their contrada. They are very wary of people that are not from their Contrada. We have made some friends from Napoli, which is in the South, and they say that even they sense the stand-offish feeling the Northerns give off. However, I have only been here two weeks so by the end of my stay I will hopefully be proved wrong.


Well it seems that this has gotten pretty long! Life has calmed down a bit now so hopefully I will have more time to update this and write some long over due e-mails. I miss everyone!!

Noelle