tuscany travels

This week was busy busy busy.

Monday we had a surprise exam. I got a 91.

Tuesday Peter gave us the rest of our assignments for the semester. I have a lot of paintings to do and not a lot of time.

Wednesday we had our new Italian class. We have started this program with an acting school in Rome (its equivalent would be Julliard). Every week an actor comes to Siena and teaches us how to pronounce words and letters in Italian. It was like Yoga, Choir and Italian all in one. For 3 hours we learned to pronounce 3 vowels. Eeee. OU, and aahhhhh. Each sound had an action. For the E action we just raised our hands over our heads then for the OU we moved our hands straight in front of us and aaah we made an alligator mouth. We started out class by saying the vowels and singing them. Then our teacher had us lay done and focus on our birth (he meant breath). Then we stood up closed our eyes and imagined we were a piece of grass. We had to imagine the color and then we had to move like the grass would when the wind blew by.. Then we got back in our circle and practiced saying the E sound. We did the same thing for OU except we had to imagine we were a cloud. And the ahh sound we were the sea. We were all doing our best not to laugh but it was hard.

Friday I went to the chocolate capital of the world, Perugia. Every October for 2 weeks there is a chocolate festival in Perugia. So about 10 of us went this year. We took the bus to Perugia and walked around the festival for a few hours.

Me, Charley and Kristen with chocolate covered bananas and our cow hats.

We got a card that let us get free samples and goodies at designated shops. It was delicious.

giant chocolate cow.

Saturday I met Jo and Chelsea at the bus station and we went to Arezzo. When we got their it was raining so we just walked around and we found some nice shops, so we went shopping and we had a relaxed lunch then we caught the bus back to Siena. At 4 the missionaries took the ward bowling in Poggibonsi.

Jo and I at the bowling alley.

I didn’t do very well. I think I got a 60 or something.Then we caught the bus back to Siena and went home.

Sunday our host family took Erika and I chestnut hunting and to a chestnut festival in Santa Fiora. It was a two hour drive into the mountains. We went with 2 other families. We hunted for about 2-3 hours. Erika and I found a ton of chestnuts.

Then we went to Santa Fiora and we had lunch. (in American it would be similar to a fair but on a smaller scale) We had ravioli filled with chestnut and a mushroom sauce, roast beef and chestnut paste/sauce with ricotta cheese. It was pretty good. Then we walked around Santa Fiora for a while and we got back to Siena at 6. It was a long but good day.

siena sends love