And the Countdown Begins...

I came back to Siena from home last Tuesday night, where I was pleasantly surprised at the train station by all my friends here. :) We then stopped in at the grocery store and bought a few goodies to enjoy back at my apartment, since the next day was a national holiday, the Immaculate Conception, and we had no class. I was so glad to get back into my routine for a little bit and get my mind off what was going on at home.

Since it was a holiday, the resident director thought that it would be fun for us to take a leisurely trip to Florence to experience the Christmas markets there. Unfortunately for us, it was pouring cats and dogs that day and we all got soaking wet, especially me. I decided at the beginning of the semester I didn't want to buy an umbrella for whatever reason, though it would have served me well because of all the rain Tuscany gets during the fall. But anyway, despite the rain, we had a great time checking out the stands. People were selling fresh baked cookies, handmade ornaments and candles, spices, mulled wine, German sausages, beer, and pretzels, clothing and scarves, and almost anything else you could think of. We walked from the Santa Croce market to another, smaller one in a different piazza, where most people sold handmade pottery, olive oil, honey, wine, and leather and wood items. Afterwards, to get out of the rain, we stopped in at the tiny handmade jewelry store I once told you about (I think I did, at least) again and of course, purchased a few more items: two bracelets for my aunts and a pair of stud earrings for myself. We quickly made it over to a cafe near the bus station, again to get out of the rain, and attempted to dry off for a bit before heading home, all the while enjoying ourselves a cup of coffee or a cappuccino. Thus concluded my last visit to Florence for a while. :(

The rest of the week I just studied, began work on a paper assignment and a few other things. But this past Saturday my apartment hosted a Christmas party for the entire program! It was 100% a success. We spent the entire day doing a full cleaning of the apartment and decorated it with garland and paper snowflakes - thoroughly cheesy. All of the students came, plus most of the Italian roommates, plus our resident director and her boyfriend! We asked each apartment to bring something to share (a dessert or drink) and we provided gingerbread, eggnog (made by hand), red wine, and bread and cheese/cheese dip. We played Christmas carols in the background and had a Yankee swap for those that wanted to participate. All in all it was a great night and we hope that everyone had as much fun as we did.

Finally, this week is my last week here in Siena. I'm sitting here writing this right now because I want to procrastinate a bit more before taking my Sienese art exam. I don't think cramming right before an exam helps much, so I'd rather write a little to you guys. I just took my Italian exam this morning and have my oral tomorrow, plus another art history exam. In the midst of studying for exams, I've been packing, purchasing last minute gifts, and just spending time with everyone. I cannot believe that time is up. Even though I'm sad that I have to leave Siena and my friends here, I'll always keep this place close at heart. It's such a wonderful small city, and I really hope to make it back here some day in the future. I'm really going to miss this place!!

Time to go finishi this last paper and study a bit before I'm home free tomorrow and headin' out Frday! It's been great being able to write this blog and keep you up to date with everything going on here in Siena. I strongly recommend coming to see it!

Ciao a tutti!

Melanie Bianco

CET Siena, Student Correspondent

Fall 2010

About three weeks ago was the last time I wrote. Sorry for the delay! A lot has been going on around here since then. After we went to Florence, we had a few days of class and then came Thanksgiving break! When I first got to Siena, I didn’t think we would have any type of break for Thanksgiving because it is a very American holiday. I was thrilled to find out that we had four days off (including the weekend). We began planning an out of town trip a few weeks beforehand. We decided to get away to Spain for those days, to Valencia. We got there Thursday midday and left Saturday evening. We finally got ourselves to a beach, ate traditional Spanish dishes full of seafood (paella, tapas, etc) and drank sangria. The night we got there, we went on a pub-crawl too and went to a bunch of bars and clubs that we never would have found without it. We got some Starbucks (oh how we missed that place!), walked around the city, picked oranges from the trees that lined the entire city, and went to the Central Market where we bought a lot of food for lunch, which ended up only costing about thirteen Euro altogether. We sat in front of a large fountain in the center of the city and ate everything before getting to the airport for our flight. Needless to say, we had a great time wandering around and didn’t spend too much money. This trip was mostly to be relaxing and cheap, since there weren’t very many museums or anything. Let’s face it: we were already getting down to the last of our savings so it needed to be fairly inexpensive. We definitely succeeded. Oh, one more thing. While we were searching for a place for lunch on the beach, one had a parrot in a cage outside (not sure why). BUT, we were staring at it because it was actually a really pretty parrot. Then it said “ciao!” How crazy is that? It’s as if it knew that we spoke Italian.

For the not so great part, on November 29, in the early hours of the morning, my mother passed away. I got the news from my dad later that day, after class. My first thought was “How am I going to get home?” Since it’s nearly the end of the semester, I definitely did not have the eight hundred dollars for a flight. Thankfully, my mom’s aunt saw on Facebook that I was not able to get home and bought my ticket for me. I got back into Washington, DC last Wednesday night and returned to Siena this Tuesday evening. I was able to see my family, including many relatives that I have not seen in years. I just wish it were under better circumstances. Nevertheless, it was great to see my family again, all ten of us siblings, and lay my mother to rest with her mother and grandparents. I was even given the opportunity to finish out the semester at home, through email, but I had already bought the ticket to come back plus the ticket to leave Italy for good. I would not have had time to pack or say goodbye to my friends here, so I think it was a good idea to come back to Siena and sort of get my mind off things. I will never be “over” my mother’s death, but it will become easier with time. The people involved with this program – my resident director, the Italy director, my professors, my friends, and the CET people in Washington – were so wonderful in accommodating me and trying to get me home. I was and am so grateful that I did not have to worry about everything I was missing (a final exam, presentations, papers, classes) and could go home. These are just a few reasons why I would recommend this program to anyone thinking about studying abroad. J

Anyway, on a lighter note, the night before I left, we visited the Tea Room behind the Campo. A few of us went a few weeks ago and it was really fun. This time it was the entire group of us, sponsored by CET. The first time I went, I ordered some kind of chamomile tea. This time, I ordered “Giamaica” (pronounced like the country Jamaica); I can’t remember what exactly was in it but it was calming and tasted like vanilla. Yum. In addition to the teas, we ordered delicious desserts that had flaming sugar on them! Yeah, it was pretty sweet. A few of us stayed a little later to study, read, do crossword puzzles, etc. If you’ve ever been to a hookah bar, it had that sort of feel, but nicer and minus the hookah smoke. I really, really enjoy the atmosphere there and if any of you decide to go to Siena in the future, try to make it out to the Tea Room.

Check back next week for my FINAL blog! I can’t believe we’re leaving in a week. This semester has absolutely flown by. I’ll have updates on the Christmas markets in Florence, our Christmas party we’re throwing at our apartment, and my last days here! L

CET Siena Student Correspondent, Fall 2010

Melanie Bianco

One Month Left

This past week marked the “one month left in Siena” marker! NOOOOOOO! I can’t believe we have less than a month here until we return to the good ole US of A. Time really has flown by.

Anyway, for our Sienese Art and Architecture course, we took a trip to the small towns of Monteoliveto and Pienza last week. I took about 140 pictures for this six hour trip altogether. In Monteoliveto, we saw the monastery and cloister, with original frescoes from the 15^th century. It was a very small, quaint town that was composed of a single bar and the monastery where Benedictine monks live. We got back on the bus after learning about the life of St. Benedict from the frescoes and went up to Pienza. Pienza is another small town outside of Siena constructed by Pope Pius II in the mid-15^th century. He constructed it to be the “perfect Renaissance town.” I’m still a little confused as to what that actually means though…The best part of that trip was getting a little break to explore on our own. Our professor told us that Pienza is home to some of the best pecorino cheese, so obviously we all bought some. Most of us bought a baguette and then went into this little store and asked for slices of salami and pecorino to make a sandwich. It was incredible. I also bought some kind of pumpkin and cinnamon spreadable concoction that I can’t wait to mix into the applesauce I make. J

The next day we had the chance to meet with a study abroad director from a university that may send its students to CET. CET sponsored a luncheon at, as you probably guessed, Fonte Giusta! We talked with her about our time in Siena, the good things and the bad things, what we do for fun, our classes, study abroad in general, and so much more. She was so down to earth and we all really hope that the study abroad office at her university decides to open up a program in Siena, because all of us love it here so much! Siena is the perfect place, not too big, not too small, and it really gives us the opportunity to learn the language. The people in Rome, Florence, Milan and all the big cities immediately know we’re Americans, so they don’t really give us the chance to speak Italian, which is very frustrating when you’re trying to learn.

Anyone want to take a guess as to where we went this Friday? That’s right, Florence! Again. It was a really ugly day out, super rainy and chilly and gross. I don’t have an umbrella either so I got pretty wet and my feet were completely soaked, even though I was wearing boots. It was all worth it thought because this trip was much more of a success than last week’s visit. We arrived in Florence around 9:30 in the morning and went straight to the San Lorenzo church to see the New Sacristy. Inside were sculptures by Michelangelo (Night and Day, Dawn and Twilight) on top of the sarcophagi of members of the Medici family. Next stop: Bargello Museum. Here we saw more sculptures by Michelangelo, namely his Bacchus.

Upstairs we saw the room of Donatello. There was his bronze David, St. George Slaying the Dragon crushed relief, and the competition panels for the second bronze door of the baptistery, one by Brunelleschi and one by Ghiberti. It was such a cool thing to be able to see everything we learn about in class. In the United States, you don’t really get the chance to physically see anything and it makes a world of difference when learning and trying to analyze art. On slides, everything just looks flat and you can’t tell the size so being able to see artworks in person is wonderful.

Next on our itinerary was the Galleria Accademia, where Michelangelo’s original David is located! We walked over there, still in the pouring rain, and had to go through security to see it. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw this massive sculpture. My heart might have actually skipped a beat. It’s literally more than three times my size (I’m 5’2” and the David is about 17 feet tall). It was so overwhelming because the David, in my opinion, is one of the most researched and talked about pieces of art in history and getting to see it in person instead of just reading about it was amazing. I am just so, incredibly grateful to be able to do all of these things! After seeing the David, we went to Santa Croce church, Brunelleschi’s Pazzi Chapel, and then the Pitti Palace. By the time we finished it was 5:45 and we hurried to catch the bus back home, thoroughly exhausted.

I’m really writing an essay, aren’t I? These blogs just get longer and longer each time I write! I promise, this is my last thing I’m going to talk about. Even though we were so tired from such a long day in Florence, we decided to have people over to our apartment and hang out for a while. After a bit, we went over to the apartment of a girl on this program’s boyfriend. He is a part of the University of California program in Siena, one that is much, much larger than CET’s. I’m not sure why it took us this long to actually go over there and meet these people, but we finally did last night! There were a bunch of people just hanging out in the apartments (which are dorm style) and we stayed there for a few hours just talking with people from the program and their Italian roommates, one of whom was super cute. ;-)

Okay, that’s the end for now! Stay tuned to hear about my upcoming Thanksgiving break and other tales from Siena!

CET Siena Student Correspondent, Fall 2010

Melanie Bianco