aria condizionata

sometimes it's worth six euro to sit in the duomo where it is cool and then processed to tell the anziani about your italian love life.

dearest siena

thanks for having these things to cheer me up when im in a poopy mood.

love
lucia

the real deal: Il Palio

decked out from head to toes. people wore their bandiera and colors in support of their contarda


some girlies from valdimontone waiting to enter the piazza.


even the babes donned their shawls


le contarde paraded through the streets of siena. i liked it when they threw the flags up in the air and then caught them, it was rather graceful and attractive


forza l'onde la mia contrada! best looking contrada out there


the parade eventually made its way into the piazza del campo. it was very slow moving. you have to do something to keep the crowd entertained while they stand around for three hours waiting for the race to start.


an unattractive picture of a very attractive man i saw while waiting.


after all the waiting the race finally commenced and it was so exciting and was over in about 90 seconds. i'oca won---i wanted bruco to win--- the people went wild and screamed and cried and threw themselves on the floor just like nonna said they would...more or less. i was very bad about taking picture/video of the race and the festivities that took part there after so you should visit this girls bolg because she is much better than me about that kind of stuff and she toats adorable.

whoa for the palio!

ps sorry this post is lame im rather tired but if i dont post now i never will. but know even though my post sucks the palio does not. it was awesome! per davvero

Palio Prep 101

siena has transformed into palio mania as the city and its residence prepare for the beloved palio.


this is the street that my bus takes everyday except now becasue its full of tables. here is were la contrada dell'istrice will party/eat it up.

they even have practice races before the real one. notice all the men....not a single woman. layne said that they like to sit with their friends so obvi italian men can not be friends with women.


some of the horse and race action that i saw the day of la prova, the try



shout out to my custodial peeps.

some siena love

a short picturesque list of things i love about my bellina cittadina


side walk street artists


old people like this sweet anziana.


sitting (people watching) in piazza del campo one of the most beautiful piazzas in all of italy if not the world according to my amico italiano


bus drivers who drive crazy and talk on the phone but still manage to navigate the tight streets and narrow back roads. night bus this is a shout out to you.


and of course italian bambini. they are my fav. they are hands down the cutest babies ever! i want one if not several. just look at the face of the boy in white and try to tell me youre not falling in love!

la scelta

Sienas ancient tradition, Il Palio is approaching quickly and there has been a whole week of festivities. We went to the selection day. the horses are randomly assigned to each contrada and once they are assigned a horse there is no changing it.


behold Palazzo Pubblico with all the contrade bandiere. the bottom 10 are the ones that will participate in the race, the top 7 will be participating next month . unfortunately my beloved l'onda will not be racing this month.


got my self a l'onda flag and wore it as a head band. inspiration: margaret tata


a member of the chioccola--the snail--contrada whos biggest enemy is ironically tartuca--the turtle. i will chuckle to myself now.


why a horse of course.

liz and i rockin our bandiera, shes a supporter of tartuca...but we can still be friends, i guess.


the selection was really fun, there were so many people there and as each contrada came into il campo they were singing there sons. but my favorite part of the day was as l'oca was leaving torre started to beat them up there were fists flying everywhere as liz says torre are the slytherines of the bunch . here are some vids from the day for your enjoyment.

and they came marching into the piazza one by one singning their songs

start off with some trumpets it will build tension.

the selection, well a part of it anyhow.

sometimes.....

there is a random bucket of water in the bathroom next to the bidet and you think to yourself "what is that doing here"

buonanotte

we discovered the 1020 late bus.





so i finally got to experience siena at night.

il dolce e la frutta

me and caterina always serve the dolce and the friut. let me tell you it's hard work. the worst is probably the bits of dolce we get to eat.

behold the man of work, sneakin away for another treat or running away from the camera.

adventures with katherine

italian fashion

katherine rockin the chunky sneakers with skinny jeans. we have seen countless italian youths and adults wearing this combo. it looks so strange...excuse me different...but he if the italians can do it why cant we. note: italians usually have chunky sneaks that are bigger than the above pictured shoes, we're talkin' sketchers shape-ups here.

the internship

well........where do i begin. hmm. my internship is not really an internship at all. its volunteer work and not even fun volunteer work. so the dante (the school here that this program is though) placed me and two other students at caritas italiana, which is apparently a well known catholic volunteer, helping the poor, saving the italian world one meal at a time kind of an organization but i have never heard of it before, probably because im not italian or catholic thank goodness.

i was really excited to work with them at first because online i read that i could work with italian bambini, which would be awesome seeing that i am basically obsessed with them, but no they placed all three of us in the mensa which is like a soup kitchen deal. so all the italian practice i have been getting is vuoi una frutta? would like a fruit? seriously. SERIOUSLY! i dont mind giving service, giving service is great, but i did not come all the way to italy to serve food. if i wanted to do that i would have signed up to work in a restaurant not humanitarian/social work and at least i could have learned how to cook. ugh. this is so dumb.

my first day of work sucked. i didnt really have any idea what was going on becasue i couldnt really understand what people were saying to me and there were so many people there. i like couldnt handle it. it was all very overwhelming and it was that time of the month so i was like overly sensitive so i just cried and did a horrible job of hiding it. it was rather embarrassing. so that is why the first day sucked.

the second day was a bit better because i now had an idea of what was going on and i could understand people more (well at least i think i could) and i wasnt as overwhelmed by the newness of the mensa so it wasnt as bad as the first day. also me and katherine had a very interesting experience the second day with some of the frequenters or ospiti.
so i was passing out the frutta and i went over to this table and asked if they wanted fruit and they did. the two guys sitting there then asked me where i was from, what i was doing in italy and such. then things got interesting/weird/creepy....

do you have a boyfriend
um...no
oh well what are you doing tonight?
niente io penso
do you wanna talk a walk with us tonight or go to the discoteca. you can bring your friend.
umm....no i think were good.
are you sure, it will be fun.
ya im sure. buon appetito
(i begin to walk away)
wait what is your friend severing?
dessert
we want some dessert too.
okay

so i went into the back closet where katherine was and relayed this story to her, which she found very funny and creepy, and she promptly refused to leave the room. so thank goodness lihmer came in and we made him take the dolce out to the two guys (who were preuvian btw) and naturally they didnt want a dessert, they were obviously interested in some other dolce. it was quite the day. haha.

so over all its boring and fun at the same time, but at least they feed us a free lunch.

but the worst is when the shove is in the clothes closet to sort the donated clothes. ugh. its happened like twice so far. this IS THE worst! they put all three of us together with no italian speakers so we of course just spoke english. it was ridiculous.

(pictures to come soon)

this is why i love italians

maybe you need an explanation. siena won their soccer game.

laundry day

so we have been here for about two weeks, it was bound to happen. one of us ran out of undies and a trip to the laundromat or lavaderia as they call it here in italy was necessary. it was an interesting experience. Katherine and I lugged the two bags of dirty clothes to the lavanderia and were shocked to find that there was only one washer! we had at least three loads to do, with on washer, mamma mia! che pazzo! so what did we do. one load at a time of course, but only two. and how much did it cost us? 8 freakin euro. i will be washing my things by hand from now on....probably if im not to lazy.





after we were done at the lavanderia (which was a walk up a hill and a bus ride away) we treked it on back to the casa and processed to hang up our soaking clothes. it was quite a sight.

its the 5th of may

in celebration of Cinco de Mayo we (me, alexa, katherine, liz margaret and limher) went to Il Gringo, a mexican resturant right here in siena. well actually we went on the sixth, but still...how was it you ask? bland and not mexicain, more peruvian than mexican (according to limher...hes mexican so he would know) anyways, we ate there and it was hilarious. i ordered an enchilada, the guac --guacamole that is-- was gross, definitely not made from avocados (which until now i thought was spelled alvocado becasue that is the way i pronounce it) but it was an experience. now i can say i've eaten at in italian mexician restaurant. here are some photos for your enjoyment. (there are far to many parentheses used in this post, for that i apologize)

around the citta

il bagno

So. the bathroom. an important part to everyone's daily routine. let me tell you about my experience with the bathroom here in siena. in my casa it took me a day to figure out how to flush the toilet. dont judge me. the tank is mounted on the wall way above the seat, which led me to wonder how a child reaches the flush, especially one who is getting potty trained seeing as how that was my favorite part of being a big girl...i assume since i dont actually remember...anyways it took me a day to figure out how to flush the toilet. there is not a handle instead in its place is a little nail looking thing that you have to pull down and when your...stuff...is all washed away you push the nail looking things back up. the shower, another interesting adventure. there is a hand held spout that looks as if it should be mounted on the wall becasue there is a place to put it but my nonna said no dont do that because water will get all over the floor. so instead i stand, well actually sit, in the bathtub holding the spout which is rather annoying and cold. there is another shower that i could use, one that actually has a curtain which helps with the feeling exposed part, and the spout is mounted to the wall but its about the size of a shoe box and i like my weird awkward shower because it feels so foreign, which oddly enough i love.

Che bella

So my first day in Siena was good. My nonna (signora Lusini) is really nice. She came and picked me up from Palazzo Gramsci when I arrived in Siena with her red care. Thanks goodness it was easy to recognize. Before we left the square, she took me to meet her son who works at the nearby market, his name is Stephano. He is the one that gave me my Italian name. I told nonna that I wanted an Italian name because Ashley is just to American. So nonna told her son this and he said that Luccia is the closest thing to Ashley in Italian so now I am Lucia. SONO LUCCIA! Haha. This is good because nonna has a hard time saying my name as well as other Italians.

Only speaking and hearing Italian is not as hard as I thought it would be. It’s hard, don’t get me wrong but I speak in better than I thought I did. Still though its hard for me to understand what everyone is saying to me, especially nonna so far because she has an accent haha. I hope my Italian will improve during my stay here, I know it will!

My new house and family: So I live in the countryside and it is so beautiful, right out of a postcard. Bellissima! The house is super cute and surrounded by a garden. It smells so good. Haha. So nonna is a beekeeper which is awesome. There are bee boxes all over the property, its great. The other day I saw the biggest swarm of bees I have seen in my life, well I heard them before I saw them. Bzzzzz. Nonna is so nice. She makes the best dinners for us every night. Oh my goodness im going to get so fat, ahah. She has also taken it upon herself to make our beds after we leave, she is such an Italian grandma. She takes really good care of us. Her sixteen year-old grandson, Tommas lives with her. He is so funny and says things like madonna and mama mia, it’s the greatest thing every. He is so adorable.

Today is Easter and the other girls are arriving today. My room is really nice, I share it with Katharine. I have a beautiful view of the countryside (well someone else backyard, but it’s still beautiful). My bed is nice, I slept really well last night. Yesterday after dinner I watched Dancing with the Stars with my nonna. I liked it but it was different that the American version. There wasn’t as many commercials which was awesome, but it was way more cheesy. Also the announcer had a horrible American accent. I sounded better than he did. I wonder if Italians like that? I don’t know, but it was bad.

I think I will have an amazing experience this summer. Ciao.

This was taken as i was walking back to the house from the bus stop. it is truly beautiful here. LO AMO.

Strada Pian Del Lago

finalmente ho trovato dove abiterò in Siena! La campagna!! sono molto emozionata. La donna chi abiterò con sembra molto simpatico e interessante. Lei è pensionato, i suoi hobby includono cucire e apicoltura. Mitico! ci ha detto che se vogliamo, possiamo prendere la sua bicicletta alla città. Magnifico! voglio andare a bici in Italia è complete l'esperienza italiana.

Sta mattina ho palato con Signoria Lusini sul telefono. A prima ero nervosa perché no so che comprerei lei, ma lei era molto simpatica e ha parlato lentamente per me. Si ho detto che arriverò a Siena alla 4:00 dall'autobus su 23 Aprile. mi ha detto che quando arrivo telefonare a lei e lei venera e portarmi alla sua casa nella sua macchina. BWAH!!! sono molto emozionata!

Solo due giorni più!

ciao ciao