Italy's Best Kept Secret

Okay, so Ravenna isn't exactly a secret. It's actually home to tons of very famous mosaics. But you never really hear about it! Anyway, I'm in love with mosaics now. And Ravenna. We were only there for a day, but I really came to love what might be the only flat city in Italy. Even though our group of 24 girls stayed in the ghetto, and a kindly old man advised us not to walk in the direction of our hotel at night. Whoops.

I wish I would've snuck pictures of my very favorite mosaics that I saw at S. Apollinare, but I was obedient and didn't take any. Boo. Isn't Ravenna cute?

A Day in the Life: Siena

I didn't want to post this until we'd left Siena, because who knows what crazed lunatic could be reading my blog, just waiting to find out my usual route to school so he could abduct me and my roommate and kill us... So, I am posting this when I am safely out of Siena (to any crazies out there: HA. Joke's on you, I'm already gone). Anyway, I am a big fan of record keeping - right now I have my regular journal, a smash book, a page-a-day journal, this blog, and a sketch book. I have developed a sort of obsessive need to preserve myself so that when I am gone, my posterity will know who I was... Okay, this blog post has gotten off to a much more morbid start than I intended.
Anyway, I have loved living in Siena so much. I have learned so much, and I am so grateful for the time I spent here and all the people I have met. I am going to have some amazing memories of this place, but sometimes my brain is lame and forgets important stuff. So I decided to go around and take pictures of all the everyday things I have gotten used to seeing and have somehow become ordinary. And believe me when I say that the following collage contains a fraction of a fraction of the pictures I took. Like, a fraction.

1. This is the desk I like to sit at in the student room at my school. I do lots of homework and internet-ing here.

2. The Duomo! Isn't it pretty? I've been here like a million times. The marble floors are only uncovered every once in a while, and we were lucky enough to be here while they were visible.

3. San Domenico - we come on field trips here a lot for Humanities 201. Inside is the strangest mish-mash of random art I have ever seen, but that makes it kind of cute.

4. THE CHRISTMAS STORE. I have no idea what it is for the other 10 months a year, but one day this store just popped up on my walk to school.

5. Just a pretty view from my walk to school.

6. This is a wall in the student room at my school. It's a picture of all the different contradas in Siena (such as unicorn, goose, etc.).

7. The Campo! We pass this on our way to school, and we come here to sit and chit-chat all the time. I like how everyone just sits on the ground and hangs out. I wish we had places like this at home!

8. La Bottega next to our school, where I buy lunch a lot.

9. Another piazza we pass on our walk to school every day. It looks really cool lit up at night!

10. This is my typical breakfast setting. Elephant placemat, mug with a 3 on it (I have no idea why - Katie's has a 6 on it). Every morning we are fed yogurt with cereal in it, fruit, milk with nesquick, and either a pastry or another carb (the last part is optional).

11. The laundromat where we (occasionally) do laundry. It's a little more ghetto than other laundromats we've found, but it's cheaper. And that's what really counts.

12. The creepy little sad boy picture that stares at me as I sit on my bed.

13. The window in which we check ourselves out each morning on our way to school. Yes, we are wearing the same cardigan.

14. The Campo, this time at night. Hands down my favorite place in Siena.

15. The Tartuca fountain on the street to our school. Each contrada has a fountain, and we aren't really sure if the water from this one is potable or not, but we drink it anyway... We call it turtle water.

16. Pretty red Vespa. *sigh*

17. PIGEONS, Y U NO LIVE IN ALASKA??

This is my beautiful Siena, that I will remember and miss forever. Don't get me wrong, I love America - the land of the free, the home of the abundant public bathrooms. It'll be great to be home in a few days. But this has been an amazing semester, and Siena will always have a special place in my heart. Forza Siena!

New Resolve

Since I only have a little while left in Italy (wahhhh), nostalgia is starting to hit me (I don't think you can actually have nostalgia for something you still have. But that's not important). I could write a list ten miles long of all the stuff I am going to miss, and one item on that list would definitely be fashion. Everyone dresses so well here (okay, maybe not the highschoolers)! I feel too casual to walk through the streets of Siena when I'm wearing a cardigan, scarf, and boots. I keep telling myself that when I get home to my full closet, I will dress nicer from now on! I wish I had taken more creeper pics of people's cute outfits, because I only have a few...

*Sigh.* Italian fashion, I will miss you.

San G.

This weekend, we had Thursday and Friday off for fall break (which I think should always be observed by BYU). On Thursday, we went to Florence (yes, again. It's really pretty there!), on Friday we did laundry and homework (see? I'm still being responsible), and on Saturday, my roommate Katie and I decided to return to San Gimignano (which we have started calling San G.). We had been there before with our host parents, but it was just for a couple hours and it was raining, so we decided to go back. I'm so glad we did.

This time, we decided to walk all around the walls, which brought us to many magical scenes. One little gem was the park where I took some creeper pics of those small children. Their parents didn't see me though, because I was hidden behind a wall and a tree. Stealth mode, you know? Katie and I decided to play at the park too, and I got some pretty good pics of her, if I do say so myself!

As we walked around the beautiful walls of San G., we came upon some lovely views. Now, I've seen the Tuscan Countryside (and I mean, I've really seen it), but this time it was fall. And there's really nothing quite like autumnal Tuscany.

I know I've said I love my life plenty of times before, but I didn't even know the half of it. So now, let me just say with perfect conviction, I LOVE MY LIFE. I'm so glad we came to San G. To be perfectly honest, one of our main motivations in coming was to eat more of the world's best gelato... So I guess you could say that we came for the gelato and stayed for San G.

The gelato is literally the best thing I have ever eaten in my whole life (and I don't mess around with the word "literally"). Words really cannot describe. And since it's fall and it gets dark earlier, we got to see the countryside at night, which was really cute but does not photograph well. In any case, this was one of the best days ever.