Stay Classy, Siena. I'll be back.

 Dear readers,

For my last travels in Italy, after Spring Break, I went to Cinque Terre, Cagliari Sardegna, Catania Sicily, and several smaller towns in Tuscany.

Cinque Terre was breathtaking. It is a series of five small, colorful towns on the coast of Liguria on the northwest coast of Italy. Cinque Terre is not something you really go to simply “see.” You “do” Cinque Terre. And by that I mean you go to Cinque Terre to hike along the coastline through all five of the towns.

When we went, the weather was not perfect; it was maybe 60°F, cloudy, and incredibly humid. The cool air and lack of sun turned out to be a boon when the normal trail was closed and we were required to hike inland and straight up a mountain to get to the next town. The view was still spectacular. The trails were unlike those in national parks in the US, where you would have to make a serious effort to put yourself at risk of falling. Rather, the trail was, for the most part, only wide enough for one person, cut into the side of a veritable cliff with either terraced vineyards or a rocky Mediterranean shoreline below you.

Cagliari, Sardegna also disappointed us with cold, rainy, and windy weather for the most part, although “it NEVER rains in Cagliari!” The beach was fantastic nevertheless, and we got to explore several unique and exotic stores in the city, like MANGO and Nike.

Catania, Sicily was stunning. Mt. Etna loomed in the distance, and even when you couldn’t see it, you had only to look around at the buildings made out of grey lava stone to remember its eternal presence in the city.

I then went to Castiglione di Pescaia on the Tuscan coast for a day, which might have been the most perfect day of beaching I have ever experienced. It was just hot enough for you to bake nicely, but there was still a nice breeze. Enough to cool you off, but not enough to blow sand into your face and iPod. The water was clear, calm, and refreshingly cool. We were about a hundred steps from a strip of restaurants, and a short walk to the bus stop. There was some serious relaxation going on that day.

Going to Monteriggioni with two Italian friends was another day of fun despite less-than-ideal weather. It was Italian Labor Day. On the way, we stopped by a public park so that Pierluigi’s dog, Toby, could stretch his legs. At this park (why on earth don’t they have these in the US??) they had a playground-turned-public-gym. Instead of monkey bars and tic-tac-toe, there were a number of individual exercise machines, like an elliptical, a leg-press, these discs you stand on and twist back and forth, working your obliques, and a number of other strange contraptions. It was awesome. I don’t frequent gyms, but I would totally go to this place all of the time. Did I mention there was also a zipline??

I finished my last exam this morning, and now as I sit here trying to come to terms with the fact that I return home in a little over two days, I am experiencing ALL OF THE FEELINGS.

I don’t have words to describe how happy and thankful I am for the time I have had here in Siena, but I am sad that that time is ending so soon.

I am happy for the friends I have made here, but I am sad to be leaving them for a future in which there is no certainty we will see each other again.

I am happy to be going home, to see my friends and family, to eat a burrito from Chipotle and “real” ethnic food. I am happy I will be going to the beach for the week I return, and that I have an exciting internship lined up for the summer.  I can’t wait to blast music and sing out loud with the windows down and that heavy Virginia air blowing in my face.

But I still can’t say I want to go home...

All I can say is that on the plane ride on the way home, the tears are going to flow. At least it would lend a nice symmetry to my time abroad.

Packing shall commence this afternoon, concluding only at 6am on Sunday morning when I will begin my homeward travels. 

Erin Friedlander

CET Siena Student Correspondent

Ten Tips for a Truly Tremendous Time in Siena

Alas chickens, it would seem that I have pochi giorni left before I must leave the glorious country of Italy! Sunday is the fateful day, and I’m trying not to pay attention to how close that is to today. How is it possible that four months have sped by so quickly? I knew I would love my time abroad, but I didn’t realize quite how attached I would become to everything, whether that means the people, the place, or the experience. So, as someone who can now say that she has lived in Siena for four months, I would like to give y’all a list of my top ten tips for having the best time possible in Siena.

1.      Get to know an Italian family! When people ask me what my favorite part of the program has been, I tell them it was my homestay family. They’ve added immeasurably to my time in Siena, since they helped me learn so much about Italian culture that I wouldn’t have otherwise, and they really helped me with learning the Italian language. Plus they made me feel loved throughout my time here, in a uniquely Italian way!

2.      Embrace Italian! I came to Italy knowing absolutely no Italian, and I was more than a little nervous about living in a small city like Siena, where not many people speak English. However, CET has a great Italian program, and I learned more Italian than I would have thought possible in 4 months. Plus, the Italian people are incredibly receptive to anyone who attempts to speak in Italian, and, more often than not, will be delighted when you try, even if you mangle the sentence horribly ( …not that I would ever do that, of course).  

3.      If you have the opportunity, volunteer! I volunteered through CET, teaching English once a week to some Italian 4^th graders. While this was initially terrifying – “you mean I have to go talk to a bunch of children that don’t know English, while I don’t know Italian??” – it was immensely rewarding in the end. My kids were adorable, they treated me like a rock star, and it was really nice to be doing something productive with my free time. Plus I got to practice my Italian!

4.      Siena is not only charming; it is very interesting, small though it may be. Thus, I think it is very valuable to take the time to thoroughly explore the city! It’s really easy to travel every weekend and not spend much time in Siena, but as much as I love traveling, and even though some of my favorite experiences were had while traveling, I had so much fun simply wandering through Siena’s tiny twisty streets, stumbling upon new things around every corner. You’re in Siena: go gawk at St. Catherine’s head! Go try to find the center of every contrada – even if you get lazy in the middle and eat a gelato instead, you’ll still be in the middle of a medieval city eating gelato. It can’t really get much better than that.

5.      Understand the Italian dress code! This is key to not getting stared at and/or yelled at by old Italian people on the street. Things that are not ok in Siena: wearing flip-flops, pretty much ever. You’ll catch cold and die with your feet all exposed like that! Also, going out in wet hair. Yet another way to catch pneumonia! Moreover, if you wear a sundress sans tights, or even just decide that you are done with wearing your winter coat before April, you will get some very strange looks, because Italians dress for the winter apocalypse until warm weather is thoroughly established. They don’t want any chance of the wind catching them around the throat and giving them a deathly illness. Italians take their health very seriously.

6.      Find a place for lunch where you can be a regular. I have a couple of places that I go to at least once a week, and the people there now recognize me, and smile and talk to me when I come in. The lady who works at the one euro pizza place our whole program goes to for lunch multiple times a week now knows that we most likely want a big piece of margherita pizza, or maybe the nutella kind instead. Besides the perks of being a regular at places this (discounts on already cheap pizza? Yes please!), it’s really fun to get to know the people who work at the bars and pizza places. They won’t really pay much attention to you for the first couple of weeks, because you’ll just be another American tourist, but if you show that you mean to stick around for a while, they’ll have no problem chatting with you, even if you occasionally commit gross grammatical errors.

7.      Don’t worry about getting fat. Eat instead! Realize that you will only be in Italy for four months, and stuff your face whenever possible. Why pass up the best margherita pizza in the world, the creamiest gelato you’ve ever had the pleasure to taste, and the most delectable pasta in the history of the world?

P.S. If you need a good gelato place, I recommend Kopakabana. If you need a good pizza place, I recommend Il Pomodorino. And if you want good pasta… talk to my homestay mother.

8.      Spend a lot of time on Piazza del Campo. It’s the center of Sienese life, and you’ll find everyone there, both tourists and Sienese people. So, grab a book or some picnic food, and go sit on the Campo and people-watch. Some of my friends and I refer to it as Siena’s beach, what with the way everyone sits on it soaking up the sun and people-watching.

9.       Don’t hate on Siena for being small and not having much of a night scene. So what that there’s only about 5 places to go on the weekend? Just go to them all every weekend! Go to the Cuban bar and make friends with the bartender – he might let you go behind the bar and make a mojito! Go to Caffe del Corso (aka shots bar) and make friends with Italians while you stand in the street with your drink. Go to the Campo with some wine and look at the stars (and maybe roll down the Campo if you’re feeling especially adventurous and it’s late enough at night).

10.   Finally, soak up every second you can – the time goes faster than you think it will! Take pictures everywhere you go, no matter how small the occasion. Don’t be afraid to look like a tourist: you are obviously not Italian, so go ahead and ask someone a dumb question. They’ll inevitably be very nice, and if you ask your question in Italian, they’ll be extremely happy.

Siena is a wonderful city, and I’ve enjoyed my time here so much. Leaving is going to be extremely bittersweet – my only consolation is that no matter what, I’m going to come back. Thanks for the amazing adventure, Siena!

Faith Bradham

CET Siena Student Corrspondent

How to Give a Tour of Siena

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had a slightly ridiculous number of friends come visit me in Siena – 4, in fact - which means that I’ve given 4 tours in the last 2 weeks. Since I now have my tour down pat, I thought I would jot down Siena’s highlights here for anyone who has yet to visit Siena/would like to visit/needs ideas for a tour.

Start off in Piazza del Campo – it’s the most obvious place to begin, seeing as it’s the center of all activity in Siena. You can talk about the Palio, since it is Siena’s biggest attraction, what with it being a bareback horse race in the middle of the city, dating from the Middle Ages. If you are starting the tour in the middle of the day, it’s nice to grab a panino (preferably from Armando’s, a deli that makes life-changing pesto) or gelato and sit on the Campo in the sun and people watch.

Once you’ve exhausted the Campo, head over toward the Duomo and marvel at the beauty of the architecture. You can either simply look at the pretty outside, or pay to go inside and see even more prettiness. That activity completed, head up Banchi di Sopra, Siena’s main street, and try to dodge past the massive groups of tourists that have now begun clogging up the street. You will pass Banca Monte dei Paschi, so stop and explain how this is the first European bank in existence, dating from 1472.

Now veer off in the direction of the Fortezza. The Fortezza has the distinction of being a 1000-year-old fortress, as well as offering prime views of Tuscany. Plus it’s a great place to see the phenomenon of Italian teenagers making out in public like it ain’t no thing. Take some pictures of the views and look at the cute old ladies gossiping while walking up and down, and then head toward San Domenico, a 5 minute walk away. San Domenico is fairly unremarkable except for the fact that it houses the head of Siena’s patron saint, St. Catherine. As in, her head is literally sitting inside a reliquary in a side chapel, for all to see. You’re going to want to stand there for a few minutes in order to gawk effectively, since it’s pretty weird stuff. After you’ve stared enough to satisfy your morbid curiosity, walk 2 minutes to St. Catherine’s Sanctuary, an airy white space with lots of gilded pictures of St. Catherine’s life.

You have now successfully hit most of Siena’s highlights! This will not take you more than an hour or an hour and a half, seeing as it takes 20 minutes to walk Siena’s diameter, so you will still have plenty of spring left in your step when you are done! Now you can treat yourself to a celebratory gelato. I recommend Kopa Kabana… I know that it has a silly name, but it has some of the yummiest gelato in Siena. Congratulations on completing a tour of Siena!

Faith Bradham, CET Siena Student Corresponent

Linguistic Conundrums and International Travel

Here’s a brief overview of the adventures I have had since I have last updated:

My friend Johnny came and visited during my midterms week. At the end of his visit, which corresponded with the beginning of my Spring Break, we headed to Venice with Sarah. From Venice (more specifically, Verona) I flew to Paris and spent two days at my friend Adam’s apartment in Paris, where he is studying. On the Monday of that week, Ari, Hannah, and Rachel arrived in Paris, and I spent the following two nights and three days with them seeing all there was to see. Naturally, my camera died on the last night we were there. From Paris we flew to Barcelona and after a much-needed nap, we recommenced our touring and flew back to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in Milan on Saturday. Sunday we took a bus home to Siena, and we were all very much ready to be back.

As much as I’m sure you would be fascinated by a detailed description of every meal I ate, every wrong turn I made, every piece of art I saw at every museum, and each subtle facet of emotion I experienced while on my Spring Break adventure, I will limit myself to some general commentary and noteworthy thoughts on the subject.

The most negative thing about the trip might have been the incredible and almost unimaginable pain we all felt in our feet constantly from day three onwards. Walking for 12+ hours a day will do that to you, we found. Unremarkable feet are an exceptionally undervalued commodity. Like how you don’t appreciate the greatness of a normal nose for breathing until it is stuffed up, red, and raw from all of those non Puffs-Plus tissues you’ve been using, you don’t appreciate how great non-sore feet are for walking until you are in Barcelona and you left yours behind in the Verona airport.

Other than that, I didn’t experience any major obstacles to my travel. I didn’t miss any flights or busses, take the wrong metro into a bad part of town, lose contact with my travel companions, get my wallet stolen, or really anything dramatic whatsoever. It was a little lonely wandering Paris for two days by myself, I will grant you, but it also allowed me to pick up much more of the language than I might have otherwise, and I also definitely appreciated the time it provided me to just think.

The most important thing I learned was that French bread is unforgettable. The macaroons were good or whatever, but the BREAD! Nothing in Italy compares. I know there’s some tradition or something of Tuscans not salting their bread, but they need to get over themselves and start learning from the French.

This past week, professors and administrators from UVa came to observe CET, and when we had dinner all together, we began talking about the cultural differences between Italians and Americans. One of them asked if and/or how we were getting to know Italian individuals, and we had to admit that it is a pretty difficult task.

Unless you have the guts and lack of inhibitions to naturally walk up to a group of Italians on the Campo in the middle of the day, the only opportunity we have had to talk to Italians one-on-one has really been while we are out at bars at night. And there is a limited level of friendship you can garner with a random person at a bar late at night, unless you are looking for more than your average, platonic friendship. If you know what I’m saying.

Thankfully, our program is small and we have the opportunity to live with young Italians who naturally become our friends. Furthermore, as we explained to our university visitors, we have Christina. Christina, our resident director, set up a casual language partner program, where she asked us all to list our top three interests, and she found some Italians from around Siena who wanted to improve their English and matched us up according to our interests. The idea was to have someone new with whom to converse for about an hour a week. After the initial meeting, it was up to us to set up our language lesson appointments, if you could call them that.

My language partner’s name is Angelo, and he is a law student at the University of Siena. I know sometimes it doesn’t work out so well, and some students find that situations such as these can feel a bit awkward or forced, especially if you fundamentally lack things in common, but we get along really well.

On the first day, I felt kind of like Christina had assigned us new friends. In a good way. Whenever I had class group projects in school, I always liked having the groups assigned randomly by the teacher, so that I would be forced to meet and get to know (possibly make friends with) people I might not otherwise have gone out of my way to talk to. I also like assigned reading, because I often find that I really enjoy what I would not have otherwise made the time to read.

I saw this opportunity as the same kind of thing. Christina manipulated the social structure obstructing our entry into Siena social circles and voilà: we had Italian friends.

I think within our group of CET students and our Italian language partners, the sequence of events went in a pretty similar manner. Get coffee together one time, then an aperitif the next, become actual friends, then maybe make dinner at one house or another in a group or something.

In some cases, when the language skills of one partner are better or worse than the other, it might happen that you tend to speak more in one language or another. For example, two of the language partners both study Finance in English as their major in college, so much more English is spoken than Italian.

For my part, as Angelo and I actually just discussed the other day, I can understand him when he speaks at a normal pace in Italian, but he can’t perfectly comprehend my mile-a-minute English. It all evens out, though, because he can speak English far better than I can speak Italian. In the end, we speak a pretty equal amount of Italian and English.

I think one of my favorite parts of the language partnership is that our conversations aren’t based in academics. In an academic setting, there are certain linguistic boundaries that are very difficult to cross, and as, in the end, you’re getting a grade for your verbal performance, there is pressure to speak cleanly with what you know, rather than diving right in and getting dirty. When you are talking with a language partner, the only necessity is communication. Messing up isn’t as threatening, especially when you know that they will just laugh at you, correct you, and then mess up in your own native language a few minutes later, at which point you can return the favor by laughing and correcting their mistake.

The mistakes are sometimes the most amusing part of it all. By messing up and having a good laugh at the silliness of language, you can enjoy the fact that the past participle of “to make out” and the word for “lemonade” are the same. Or that it is very difficult for Italians to pronounce “air” versus “hair” versus “ear” versus “hear.” Or you can have a good chuckle when one of you confuses “pants” and “shoes.” (Please, make yourself comfortable! Take off your pants and stay a while.)

Erin Friedlander, CET Siena Student Correspondent

CET Siena cerca Italian Roommates per l'autunno di 2012

CET ACADEMIC PROGRAMS, presente a Siena dal 2001, è in cerca di nuovi collaboratori per la prossima sessione (agosto 2012 – dicembre 2012). CET ospita fra 10-15 studenti universitari americani per tre soggiorni di studio all’anno: uno primaverile, uno estivo e uno autunnale. Durante il loro soggiorno a Siena gli studenti americani condividono appartamenti con studenti italiani che fanno parte del programma “Italian Roommates”.

Lo studente italiano lavora insieme ai membri dello staff per sviluppare e mantenere un ambiente sereno negli spazi residenziali (appartamenti nel centro storico abitati da 2-4 studenti americani). Quale compenso, usufruisce gratuitamente di una camera singola nell’appartamento che condivide con gli studenti americani (si richiede un contributo mensile di 80 Euro che copre tutte le utenze, compreso internet) per un valore stimato di circa 400 €/mese. Tutte le attività e cene sponsorizzate dalla scuola (valore stimato = €200 per sessione) saranno pagate e/o rimborsate dalla scuola.

Il ruolo dell’ “Italian Roomate” ha diversi profili e comprende lo sviluppo di attività culturali, la sicurezza e supervisione degli studenti, e alcune responsabilità amministrative nell’ufficio dell’istituto. Tali mansioni richiedono che il Roommate sia un forte e affidabile punto di riferimento sia per lo staff che per gli studenti, che abbia una buona conoscenza della lingua inglese e che promuova il benessere di tutta la comunità residenziale. Il Roommate è una risorsa per gli studenti e per lo staff e si impegna a rispettare gli obiettivi e la missione di CET Academic Programs. Ogni Roommate rispetta e rafforza le regole e le procedure dell’istituto.

Date AuTUNNO 2012:

Siena – FALL 2012

Mer, 22 ago Arrivo studenti

Gio, 23 ago Cena di inizio sessione

Gio, 22 – Sab, 24 Orientamento studenti

Lun, 15 -19 ott Fall Break

Gio, 13 Dic Cena di fine sessione

Sab, 16 Dic Partenza studenti

Se siete interessati a candidarvi alla posizione mandate un’email all’indirizzo: siena@cetitaly.com per richiedere un application form.