In which Amber wishes everyone a happy Thanksgiving
So it's Thanksgiving here, and I'm trying to stave off the homesickness by chatting with Jen and Julia on gmail <3. Things have been exciting around here. Getting a bit bogged down with work, as I have to write 50 pages by the time I go home and I have currently written 3.25. Yay.
But I have been doing exciting things other than working. I went to Rome last Saturday (yes, I attempted to do Rome in one day) and it was amazing. I can't call it a perfect day, because the Sistine Chapel was closed so the pope could do this (LINK!), but otherwise it was fantastic. The Vatican was much much less crowded than usual, and I got to see the School of Athens by Rafael, which I had never done before. And I walked everywhere after that; I forgot how close all the famous sightseeingy stuff in Rome is. I went to the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, the Spanish Steps (and I climbed them!), the Trevi Fountain, saw the Monument for Vittorio Emmanuele II (first king of Italy), parts of the Roman Forum from a distance, and the Colosseum at night. And I had dinner at a restaurant right across the street from the Colosseum, which was cool. I spoke to all the Italians in Italian, and they were all nice and seemed to understand me, which was awesome. And it turned out the owner of the restaurant was from Siena, which I figured out because there was a Nicchio crest on the wall. So I talked to him for a bit about Siena too, and that was really cool. And then it was back on the bus. I left Siena at 6 am, got to Rome at 9:15 am on the bus. Left Rome at about 8pm on the bus and got back to Siena by 10:50pm. It was fantastic. After the Munich pants-stealing, I was NOT in the mood for another hostel.
On Sunday I went to an A.C. Siena soccer game with a bunch of people from my program. Siena's soccer team, well, to put it nicely, kind of sucks. They lost, 2-0. And losing this game decided for sure that they were going to be dropped down to a lower series next season. So everyone left *really* happy. But it was exciting. Also, fun fact, the boys had to pay 5 euros more for tickets than the girls. We are unsure as to why. Our current theories: 1) an attempt to make the gender ratio more balanced, 2) men are more likely to get into fights.
This weekend should be both relaxing and fun. Tomorrow we have an all-day excursion to various farms to taste olive oil and cheese and learn how they are made. And they feed us lots of good food for free. And on Saturday we're going to the Uffizi museum in Florence, and those of us in the Art History class are supposed to be able to go see Michelangelo's David in the Accademia too. The rest of the time I really need to start doing some work, like for example the take home art history midterm (#2!) that I probably should have been working on right now.
Next "weekend" we have a long weekend, so I'm going with my housemate and one of his friends to Brussels and then briefly to Amsterdam. I was just going to tag along on the Brussels part of the trip, but then my program gave us the Monday and Tuesday after the weekend off as well, so I'm continuing on to Amsterdam with them Saturday night and leaving Monday. Can you believe the Tuesday flight cost 100 Euros (that's $150) more? But that means Tuesday can be homework day in case this Sat. afternoon/Sunday aren't as productive as they have to be for me to survive.
In a few minutes I'm going to go help setting up Thanksgiving dinner with the program. All the students, staff, language partners and any student's actual families that are here (not hosts or it would be too big) are invited. So we're expecting somewhere from 50 to 70 people. It could be interesting. We're having several giant turkeys, mashed potatoes, stuffing, some vegetables I can't specifically recall, hopefully pumpkin pie, and chocolate chip cookies two of the girls in the program made last night. No cranberry sauce, because they don't have it in Italy! Sadness. And pumpkin pie has to get made out of the pumpkins themselves. Whew.
I've got to run because they're closing this office. More pictures to be posted eventually, I promise, possibly without captions or as many captions. I miss you all, and I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving!
But I have been doing exciting things other than working. I went to Rome last Saturday (yes, I attempted to do Rome in one day) and it was amazing. I can't call it a perfect day, because the Sistine Chapel was closed so the pope could do this (LINK!), but otherwise it was fantastic. The Vatican was much much less crowded than usual, and I got to see the School of Athens by Rafael, which I had never done before. And I walked everywhere after that; I forgot how close all the famous sightseeingy stuff in Rome is. I went to the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, the Spanish Steps (and I climbed them!), the Trevi Fountain, saw the Monument for Vittorio Emmanuele II (first king of Italy), parts of the Roman Forum from a distance, and the Colosseum at night. And I had dinner at a restaurant right across the street from the Colosseum, which was cool. I spoke to all the Italians in Italian, and they were all nice and seemed to understand me, which was awesome. And it turned out the owner of the restaurant was from Siena, which I figured out because there was a Nicchio crest on the wall. So I talked to him for a bit about Siena too, and that was really cool. And then it was back on the bus. I left Siena at 6 am, got to Rome at 9:15 am on the bus. Left Rome at about 8pm on the bus and got back to Siena by 10:50pm. It was fantastic. After the Munich pants-stealing, I was NOT in the mood for another hostel.
On Sunday I went to an A.C. Siena soccer game with a bunch of people from my program. Siena's soccer team, well, to put it nicely, kind of sucks. They lost, 2-0. And losing this game decided for sure that they were going to be dropped down to a lower series next season. So everyone left *really* happy. But it was exciting. Also, fun fact, the boys had to pay 5 euros more for tickets than the girls. We are unsure as to why. Our current theories: 1) an attempt to make the gender ratio more balanced, 2) men are more likely to get into fights.
This weekend should be both relaxing and fun. Tomorrow we have an all-day excursion to various farms to taste olive oil and cheese and learn how they are made. And they feed us lots of good food for free. And on Saturday we're going to the Uffizi museum in Florence, and those of us in the Art History class are supposed to be able to go see Michelangelo's David in the Accademia too. The rest of the time I really need to start doing some work, like for example the take home art history midterm (#2!) that I probably should have been working on right now.
Next "weekend" we have a long weekend, so I'm going with my housemate and one of his friends to Brussels and then briefly to Amsterdam. I was just going to tag along on the Brussels part of the trip, but then my program gave us the Monday and Tuesday after the weekend off as well, so I'm continuing on to Amsterdam with them Saturday night and leaving Monday. Can you believe the Tuesday flight cost 100 Euros (that's $150) more? But that means Tuesday can be homework day in case this Sat. afternoon/Sunday aren't as productive as they have to be for me to survive.
In a few minutes I'm going to go help setting up Thanksgiving dinner with the program. All the students, staff, language partners and any student's actual families that are here (not hosts or it would be too big) are invited. So we're expecting somewhere from 50 to 70 people. It could be interesting. We're having several giant turkeys, mashed potatoes, stuffing, some vegetables I can't specifically recall, hopefully pumpkin pie, and chocolate chip cookies two of the girls in the program made last night. No cranberry sauce, because they don't have it in Italy! Sadness. And pumpkin pie has to get made out of the pumpkins themselves. Whew.
I've got to run because they're closing this office. More pictures to be posted eventually, I promise, possibly without captions or as many captions. I miss you all, and I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving!