now my feet won't touch the ground

Alright this is gonna be rough...

the week vacation was fantastic. Went to Verona on the way to the mountains, which was cool... The mountains were sooo beautiful, and there was a mini-spa in the hotel, so for 2 days the schedule was wake up, go skiing, come back at 3, sit in the steam room/nap, eat dinner. I went skiing the first day- scary... the alps are steep. The 2nd day I went to the mountain but ice skated instead and then went bob sledding- this ended up being more of a near death experience than skiing. Or maybe i should say a near face-break experience as i had a person AND a bobsled land on my head. luckily there was nice cushy snow to protect my face.

Then me and some of my friends went to Trieste, which is a really really pretty town by the sea. We walked around a lot, went to a castle, made ourselves lunch from the breakfast buffet, and some other stuff... interesting i know. After 2 nights there we went to Venice, took a nap in our amazing hotel that we never got to fully enjoy, and then went into the city (our hotel was actually in mestre, a short distance from venice). In Venice we walked around a lot. Ate some good pizza, drank some dranks, met a lot of people, and ended up back at our hotel around 3. walked around venice on Sunday, slept next to a canal, ate some free food, then headed back to siena!

Now my normal classes have started. I'm taking italian cinema, sociolinguistics, translation, creative arts, and i still have an italian language class. 3 of my classes have a 10 page paper due at the end of the semester... :-( boo work.

Last weekend Maraya and i went to Bologna- left siena around 12 on saturday and caught a train back to Siena at 5am sunday. We got a lot accomplished in Bologna... walked around a lot, drank cappucinos in a jazz cafe, looked around in a church, wore funny hats, sat on the steps of the library trying to preach to people in italian and ask where the university piazza was, and an assortment of other things. (thats a pic of bologna at the top)

Now we get ANOTHER break for about 10 days. On friday i head to London, then on Tuesday I go to Glasgow Scotland, then on thursday I go to Dublin... Ireland! yeaaaahh dublin

okaayy i'm sure i'll post again soon... maybe in a couple of months? okay i'll actually try this time.

byeee loves.

Rainy Day

I'm more than a little bad at keeping up with a blog! what happened to the good old xanga days where i had tons of irrelevant things to say to people.. Sorry for the Coldplay titles but I think that Prospekt's March is pretty catchy.. and it has been raining a lot! I actually used an umbrella today. the one my family provided for me. the broken one. It's pretty common for the umbrellas that are provided by host families to be broken, just something i've noticed.  

So last Saturday I went to San Gimignano  which is a really small town here in Tuscany. After a slightly woozy, curvy bus ride we arrived!  We were really lucky that it was sunny. We showed up, walked around, and found a nice wall in the sun that overlooked the countryside to eat lunch.  It was amazing!  This little town is surrounded by the most picturesque countryside you can imagine.  Lots of little farms dotted with trees etc etc super adorable.  For pictures (because my camera wasn't charged and I still haven't been able to steal pictures from others) you should wikipedia San Gimignano, do it! now! its gorgeous.  While we were eating a little old italian lady was strolling below us and stopped to wave and say "Buon Appetito!" How perfect is that? We were told by others to make sure we made it up to the highest tower in the town, but it was closed for the day (italian hours...) maybe for a festival?  There was a market, with an animal section! which means puppies, baby turtles, bunnies, and probably anything else you can think of that would make me want to stop for about an hour. We did find a public "tower" that offered an amazing panorama of the entire countryside for miles and miles (kilometers and kilometers?) which we came back to for sunset before we had to run and catch our bus back to Siena.   

Saturday night Maraya and I hung out with our "cousin" Davide.  We ate pizza from our Julia's pizzeria. Julia is our "sister." Then we went and hung out with his friends, found a pub called "officina" and played some games.  2 truths and a lie aaaand... some card game. I don't remember what.  It was pretttty fun.

I'm done with my "3 week intensive italian" course, and now I have a week of vacation and then my REAL classes start.  This week is a school trip.  On monday we head up to Verona for a day and then continue up to the Dolomite mountains for a 2 day spa experience! We can either ski or use the spa or travel to small towns around the area.  I think I will ski one day, and maybe hang out in the hot tub the 2nd day.  Who knows.  Then we go... somewhere. i don't really know where. typical lindsay.  THEN Lisa, Julianne, Robyn, Chelsea, and myself will head to Trieste for a day or two and then to Venice for Carnevale!! Carnevale in Venice is the topic of the picture up there.  I'm pretty excited, even though i just heard that it might be snowing... god damn.  And we might be forced to stay out all night saturday because the bus to our hostel stops running at some point and starts again in the early morning.  yeaaah new experiences.  

I don't know what my internet contact will be like in the coming week or so, but my phone will be with me, and i have a little bit of credit left on it, but i can ALWAYS receive calls! You have no idea how sane it makes me to talk to you guys, and the couple of video chats i was able to do this week were amazing! seeing your faces makes me feel a couple thousand miles closer to you.

And i'd love emails/facebook messages.  

Okay I will talk to you all soon hopefully! I will post something after my mountain/venice experience. 

looooove <3>

Postcards from far away

 Hey!  Okay i am low on battery... again. And  I have a sketchy internet connection.

okaaay so this is piazzo del campo.  It is the main square in Siena!  One of my classrooms is right off of the piazzo so I am around here a lot.  When it's warm out everyone sits down and eats out here.  It hasn't been cold, just kinda chilly some days.

  

So i live right outside of the city w/ a family of 4.  2 grandparents, their daughter, and their granddaughter.  They are super nice!  Sometimes in the morning it's a challenge to speak italian... need some time to mentally prepare.  There are 2 other students living in the house also, Maraya and Jordan. Super nice, smart, funny people. Apparently i say super a lot now..

It is about a 20 minutes walk to the city from my house, which is really lucky. Some people are forced to take the bus into the city which can be tricky.  When i walk home after a night out it is practically silent.  A couple cars and i maybe pass 1 or 2 people.  

Yesterday I hopped on a bus with some people and we rode to Florence for the day.  There was a chocolate festival going on... beaaauuutiful. Hot chocolate here is more like hot chocolate pudding.  I wish i could buy some chocolate and send it home to people.  It literally rained all day yesterday and since we were outside walking around my jeans were soaked all the way up to my knees!  

anyway, i'm taking it easy today.  Came into town to use the internet and am going to study a little and eat dinner and sleeeep.

I really miss everyone a lot so I need you guys to figure out a cheap phone card system so you can call me and not get charged! 

Ciao tutti!

ummm

heeeeey! okay my battery is almost gone. byeeee!