Siena and Lucca

Hi all,

Okay, so it has been a while. My battery charger doesn’t work here in Italy, so my camera has been out of order. I am fixing that problem today, but I thought I would write a little bit before I start taking pictures for myself. I have been stealing many pictures from the other people on the program…which works out well for me, actually. Since I wrote last, we had our Welcome Dinner here for the program and took a day trip to Lucca, another walled city north of here.

Welcome dinner was really fun. The dinner was delicious and everyone was excited to finally be all together as a group. We had some delicious food and lots of yummy Italian wine. I’ll be updating more pictures of food as I collect photos from other people here in my apartment.

We kind of all group together here…these are the girls that live on my floor and that I spend most of my time with. We have a lot of fun together. We are starting to realize who we are going to want to travel with, study with, etc.

Rachel and I at welcome dinner

Everyone is having a lot of fun so far and while we are still getting to know each other, our individual personalities are becoming very clear. Oddly enough, nobody is clashing too much. It is only the 3rd week we have been here, but for the most part everyone seems to be getting along very well.

Having fun at the famous "il Campo"

We are all having a lot of fun exploring the city still, and it is nice to have a bunch of people to get lost with….so that maybe SOMEONE will know where we are or what we’re doing. It really helps that everyone here has a great sense of humor, too…

Much more realistic...

because it helps to laugh. (-:

Everyone so far seems to be interested in learning the language, which is good because I was afraid that a lot of people would be here just to party in Italy. Well, there is a fair amount of that going on…but for the most part people are into studying too. I really like the atmosphere because while I want to have fun here, I also am determined to learn Italian. At least better than I know it now. (-: It really helps to be able to walk around the lovely streets of Siena and converse with people in Italian. If I want to eat gelato, I must speak Italian…and therefore I am motivated.

Streets of Siena

On Monday, we took a class trip to Lucca. We had a biking tour of the city (conducted from on top of the city walls!) where we learned about the similarities and differences between Siena and Lucca, which in some ways look very similar. The tour was beautiful, and when we finished we were taken to an amazing restaurant where we had a 5 course meal. 5. Soup, salad, pasta, vegetables and dessert…for the vegetarians, at least. Everyone else had “delicious” meat of some sort. And we were all treated to endless Chianti, which I think might get more dangerous as the program continues and we start to get increasingly stressed about school.

Bike ride in Lucca

Overall, I’ve been having a really nice time. I have experienced a little bit of homesickness, but school is hard enough to keep me distracted. I am finding it very difficult to pick up the language again, so it takes a lot of concentration just to be prepared for the next day of class.

Anyway, I will be posting more this weekend, because I will have more pictures after today.

Ciao Ciao,

Nikki