February is moving right along

February has been a pretty slow month for me. Nothing really eventful has happened. I have been spending a lot of weekends in Florence this month and loving it, it’s so wonderful to not be traveling all the time. Even though there is so much to see, I love taking the time to enjoy Florence as much as I can. Traveling on the weekends means you barely get any sleep because when we travel, we get up early to go see the sights, then are out late enjoying the places we go to. So that equals not very much time spent sleeping, and trying to make it up during the week is almost impossible.

Last weekend I went on two day trips: first to Siena and San Gimignano then to Assisi. By the way it’s pronounced jim-in-yan-o (in Italian a ‘gn’ makes the sound of ‘ny’).

Siena was great! Peter, the travel director at school, took a small group of us. It was only Peter, Fr. Paul (the chaplain) three other girls and myself. Our first stop in Siena was to see the head of St. Catherine of Siena (there are multiple St. Catherines). Her head is in the church of San Dominico in Siena while her body is in Rome where she died. Siena and Rome both wanted her when she died, so they decided to share. Sorta creepy.

After that church, we got a snack at Nannini’s. Including this panteforte thing that Peter bought us. I thought it was gross, but I ate a little of it anyways to be polite. After our snack and bathroom break, Peter walked us over to Il Campo. It is really one of the best squares for people watching I have ever been to. It was such a beautiful day too, the sun was shining and oven though it was cold, it was really good weather for February. I wish we could have stayed longer, but we had a lot to see!

Back in the day (as in 1200/1300s) Siena wanted to build a Duomo bigger than the one Florence had, so they set about expanding theirs. They built a few new walls, then the plague struck Siena and the population went from 100,000 to 30,000. From then on, plans for expansion were cancelled. Nevertheless, Siena’s Duomo is FANTASTIC! The best part is the floor. The floor is done totally in designed marble. Most of the floor is kept covered to reduce wear, but there is still plenty to see. We also went to the Duomo museum and climbed up to what would have been a new wall of the expanded Duomo. Great view!

After some lunch, we left Siena and drove over to San Gimignano (did you say it right?). This small town is so cute! It is known for having lots of towers. But over the years many have been destroyed, from the original 40 or so, there are only 14. San Gimignano is up on a hill and you can go climb up to part of the old fortress and look down across the whole valley below. We had perfect timing and got there just at sunset. After taking some pictures we went to a small church: St. Augustine. As we started heading back to Florence and the stars were out. I love getting out of Florence to places where I can see the stars again. Never again will I take seeing the stars at night for granted!

That night, I went to dinner at ZaZa’s with some girls from the day trip. It was really good food, but something very strange happened there. After we ate, the brought us the check! I have never been brought a check in Italy. No matter how crowded a restaurant is, they always let you take all the time you need, I’ve always had to ask for the check. This was a first and it really took us by surprise!

Next morning, was Assisi! We went to a lot of churches. Honestly, I got a little churched out by the end of the day. Assisi is up on a hill, but the first church we went to was at the bottom, Santa Maria degli Angeli. (Degli is pronounced day-yee) The cool part of this church is that there is a church inside the church. Santa Maria degli Angeli is really big and was built around a small chapel like church (the Porziuncola – don’t ask me how to say that one). Also, going though a hallway you get to large window with a rose garden outside. That rose garden is where - according to legend - St. Francis died by throwing himself into the thorny roses when he was tempted by a woman.

Our next site in Assisi was the hermitage St. Francis started. Let me tell you if I were to be a monk, I would like to have that view every morning! The hermitage is all stone and built into the hill. I’m not sure how much of it is still used a monastery today, but there are tons of tourists there in summer. (Going to these places in the winter certainly has its advantages!)

After the hermitage we went to the medieval downtown of Assisi, had some lunch and gelato! Yummy. We had enough time for a visit to the church of St. Claire. So pretty! St. Claire has these gorgeous stripes of pink limestone around the outside. Inside, we saw relics of St. Francis and St. Claire: some clothing, St. Claire’s hair in a box and her body. The body was covered this time. The next church was the childhood church of St. Claire. Inside this man who didn’t speak English kept showing me and another girl things to see in the church. He directed us to a side chapel, a hallway full of Pope John Paul II portraits, and a guestbook to sign our names.

The final church of the day was the Basilica of St. Francis. HUGE! The basilica is two stories and has a piazza to the side, as well as a cloister for the active monastery. Peter arranged for a professor to guide us around through the basilica, pointing out certain interesting things. It was a pretty good tour for the most part. Except it was a little long (2 hours) and his voice was kind of hard to listen to. There was a lot to see in the church and I honestly didn’t pay very close attention to the tour and can’t really remember anything he said.

After the tour, we had some hot chocolates and drove back to Florence. We went to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants: El Gato e La Volpe (the cat and the fox). The waiters there are always really nice and end up giving us a discount every time. The balsamic vinegar there is one of the most amazing things on the planet. And they give you salty foccacia bread for dipping! It is so good. (Mom and Dad will be able to vouch for me in about 2 months.

My life in Florence, is going pretty great! I have taken up running and I have gone almost every day for about a month. Unfortunately, I am not getting much better, so no marathons in my plans. But I like the running, even though I can’t run very far or very fast, the endorphins put me in a really good mood. School has been good too. After this weekend, I have midterms all next week! The weekend after that I was thinking about taking the train to somewhere to ride bikes or do some hiking. Something outdoorsy. I’ll let you know if I end up following through. My jeans are starting to show some serious wear, as in they have holes. So I might have to spend some time and money in Bologna shopping for new pants.

I am so excited to go to Scotland for Easter! I am going to stay with our relatives Ann and Jim in Glasgow. Then go to Edinburgh and go on a 3 day tour of the Highlands that includes the Isle of Skye, Culloden, and sleeping in a castle! It is going to be so cool!

This weekend I was not at all bitter about it being Valentine’s Day and not having a date. Nope, not bitter at all. Thursday night I went to a movie. In the Valley of Elah was playing at the Odeon. (Odeon is the theater that has movies in English once or twice a week.) It was a pretty good movie, but we all left really depressed.

Friday was the beginning of my hair dying saga. Alyse was one of my room mates last year and she lives in the pensione with me this year. Her favorite thing to do is dye people’s hair. Last year she did my hair twice, so I decided to dye my hair this weekend. And I wanted to be blond. As a child I had blond hair so I have the right skin tone to pull it off. Friday afternoon we had a box of blond hair dye and Alyse was putting it on my head when we ran out of hair dye! I know I have a lot of hair, but I didn’t think it was so much hair that we would run out of dye (its never happened before). Alyse did the best she could but after I rinsed it out, the new color had only dyed the top few inches. So Saturday we tried again. This time I bought two boxes of dye. The first box we used on the bottom of my hair to try and even it out. But the bottom wouldn’t really take the dye. So we used the second box to dye the top layer that shows the most. So end of story is, I am not a blond, but I might want to be someday. My hair is lighter, especially on the top, but that’s all. At least it didn’t turn orange or dye all patchy.

After the hair dying last night, I went out to a concert. It was a really odd experience. Liz’s conversation partner Luca invited her to a “heavy metal” concert. She took Jenne, Alyse, and me along. We met up with Luca and his two friends and went to this concert. Heavy metal it was not. It was like creepy vampire music. But it was good because it was finally something different that the Americans haven’t infiltrated, got to practice the Italian. The band was basically just a man screaming into a microphone. Thank God I changed into a black shirt before we left. Originally I was going to wear blue; I would have been the only person not in black at the concert.

My quest for an internship in accounting (or really anything at this point) is not going so well. Some of the other girls and I have all been complaining to each other about how hard it is to find an internship that wont turn you down immediately because we are in Italy and cant do the standard on-campus interview process.

Ok, this is a really long blog, if you made it all the way to here, you get a prize!
Sorry this has no pictures to do with the stories. But I'm putting some up on shutterfly, check them out if you want to!

All my love as always!