OH SWEET SWEET INTERNET

I LIVE! Seriously.

I thought I was going to die there for a minute, the internet access in Italy is, let's just say, less than stellar. What wireless there is flits in and out, and the landlines? 2 euro an hour? That's a student discount, ladies and gentlemen. Hells no.

Anyway, enough with the ranting. More with the recounting of the past week (since I know all one of you who actually read this trash cares or at the very least pretends to).

Flew out of Philly, no problems. The flight was long, the chairs were cramped, but the company was good. We spent most of the time at the airport munching on McDonald's and calling people. Viv and Jane are both nice, and have a fantastic chemistry not unlike two sisters who basically pick on each other all the time. It's pretty hysterical. Got to London at the early early early crack of dawn, after which we spent the 2 and a half hours staring at people in the London airport. And the fog. A portion of that time was dedicated to hopelessly watching our flight information crawl up the electronic board. At the time the gate should have been posted, we received a very polite "Please Wait" sign instead. With 10 minutes to takeoff, they gave us the gate. We sprinted there only to sit for another hour and a half on the plane because the country was too damn foggy. We finally took off at 1210, landing us in Rome at 330 where Richard, our very old (pushing 65) trip director was waiting for us. We then piled into a buslike concoction and headed the 2 hours to Siena to our respective host families. Mine is called Fedolfi, consisting of Luanna and Gianfranco (Franco from here-on-out) and a little weiner dog named Pippo. I was exhausted, inhaled the delicious delicious food that Luanna placed infront of me, unpacked into my tiny little room with a terrace and a view, and passed out.

The next day consisted of walking around Siena. We met up with Richard and Mike, the poor guy is the only male on the trip. I feel a little bad for him, but oh well, he's enthusiastic enough to go out and do exactly as he pleases whether followed by us three or not. The walking tour was nice, Siena is all hills and valleys and stone streets. It's very beautiful, and the weather is warmer than home. It's warm enough to walk around sans hat and gloves, and with jacket open. The food is delicious, although it is very easy to slip into what we have deemed the "Euro State of Mind" in which you see something and think, "Oh! It's only a euro-fifty! That's nothing! And look! A panino for 3 euro? Fantastic!" meanwhile in dollars it is slowly racking up. I don't even want to think about how much I've gone through already. But yes, the city is lovely the people are lovely and everything is fabulous. We walked through some museums and some buildings and it's all just old and gorgeous like time just stopped here (which it did, basically. The Black Death wiped out 80% of Siena's population).

We've travelled to San Gusme' which was lovely as well, very cute and similar to Siena, got a fabulous lunch, went to a hot spring spa to soak, which was wonderful besides the fact that it smelled like rotten eggs, and basically have travelled and know the city fairly well. At least well enough to know that if you take the wrong street where it will somewhat end up in a few minutes.

As for classes, it's a piece of cake. Very laid back for 2 and a half hours each day from 9 to 1130 M-F. There's rarely any homework, our homework last night was to translate an American joke into english. Seriously. There are no papers, we have a few minor presentations that are mostly just to get us speaking better, and a final at the end which I can't imagine will be very difficult. After 1130 we normally wander around and shop, get lunch at some small paninoteca or pizzeria, head over to the student center to use the crappy internet, then hang out in La Piazza del Campo, which is where everyone goes because it's basically the only thing here. People lay out on the bricks in the sun and the Piazza empties slowly as the sun sets and the shadows creep over the center. In all it's simply gorgeous.

Well, I believe that is it for now, I may post again soon! Hope the States are treating you with more kindness (at least to your wallets) than Italy. Ciao! A presto!