Wednesday was a very exciting day though. To start off, my class had two hours in the morning to go and explore the market that comes on Wednesdays. We were given a worksheet and had to go through the market and answer the questions in Italian. It was a lot of fun and the market is so huge. It literally kept going and going. The market has like everything; socks, bras, underwear, shirts, pants, coats, make up, flowers and plants, home goods, shoes, and food. My friend and I had to ask about the names of plants and how much they cost and the guy we went up to was really nice. We explained to him that we had the worksheet to do and he answered all the questions and even wrote down the names of the flowers so we could see how they were spelled. It was so cool to go through there because I had never been before. After that, I had Italian class and the Into FICCS courses. To finish the day, I got to go to a cooking lesson! We didn't make everything, but we did get to try everything. The one thing we did get to make was the pasta. The instructor gave us the pre-measured ingredients and we had to mix them, let the dough rise, and them roll them out with our hands. We also had pizza and tiramisu with our pasta. It was so yummy and we even have recipes to take with us.
On Thursday we had our reflective writing groups in the morning. During this time we talk about what has been going on and go over the writing prompts we were given. It is also a time to just express concerns we have or anything exciting. These groups are once a week and afterwards we resume our normal schedule of Italian.
Friday was also a busy day. We had our second exam today. The last exam I got a 92%. I don't know yet what I got on this exam, but I felt like I did good. Afterwards, My class and the higher level class got to go to the Mueso Civico. It was another wonderful museum filled with beautiful art from floor to ceiling in the historic building were the government used to be held. It is located right in Piazza del Campo which is the center of the city. They have works of art from so many eras of time and even have part of the old cathedral in there with all original paintings and choir benches.
Then, to our surprise, it started to snow in thick heavy drops. It was so beautiful to see Siena covered in snow and it was also a rare even. At first the ground was too warm and the snow was too wet to stick, but as it kept coming down the flakes became bigger and fluffier and they began to stick. It didn't last too long, but all the us were out dancing and taking pictures and enjoying the beauty. The funniest part though was that there were so many people using umbrellas. Since I am from NE Ohio, I found this rather funny. Snow, although very beautiful, is also very dangerous in Siena. They do not have the equipment to move or salt the snow. The streets are extremely slippery and the hills are dangerous. Luckily, it did eventually stop snowing and the snow melted, but they had to block off the center of Piazza del Campo because it was slippery, but Siena made it into the nightly news.
This evening I also had a wine tasting class. A friend of one of the SIS coordinators came in a taught us all about wine. He showed us how to find the color and how to determine the age. He also showed us how to analyze the smell to tell what kind of fruit, spices, or flowers are in it. Then, off course we got to taste the wine. We tried a white wine, a red wine, and a dessert wine. I liked the white wine out of all three. The dessert wine was very strong, but it was meant to be eaten with desserts. I have to say that this was a neat experience and I'm glad that I was able to be here to experience it.
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