Wine, Waves, and Underground Adventures

(Update: Pictures finally added to the first post! Scroll down to see them!)

Well, I've been in Siena for over a week now, and I definitely  feel settled in. Our apartment is pretty much fully furnished now, with the new additions of dish towels, a bath mat, pots and pans, and, most importantly, food. So other than a few more decorations and pictures I have to put up, it feels pretty homey. :) I've done laundry - which is quite the experience since the machine runs for over 2 hours, and there are no dryers -  I've been washing dishes left and right, and I've gone to the grocery store three times already. Speaking of the grocery store - ours is called Conad - it is so little and hectic that it's very stressful to shop in. The store directs your shopping path in a big circle, so you end up at the cash registers by the end of your trip. But if at the end of your trip you decide you need something from the entrance area - good luck. You feel like a salmon swimming upstream, against the path of a ton of Italian salmon. Believe me, I've tried. Hectic, I tell you. Anyway, they have a great selection of food, so it's been fun to explore.  The gas in our stove wasn't on until this tuesday, otherwise I would have cooked already, but now it's been remedied and we cooked our first dinner last night! We made pesto pasta and grilled chicken - nothing too fancy, but it was delicious, and my roommate and I felt very accomplished. :)

My program, IES, gives us the same status in town as the students of the University of Siena, so we get a lot of  perks, like access to the several libraries and the two University cafeterias in town. I haven't checked out the libraries yet, but I've gone to one of the cafeterias twice now, and it's amazing. It's really good food at an excellent price. Last week I got a huge plate of two pastas, a bowl of vegetables, bread, yogurt, and soda, all for only €2.60, and last night I got a huge personal pizza (made to order), french fries, fruit, and a soda for the same price. It's a lot cheaper than any restaurant or cafe in Siena, so it's a really nice option when you don't feel like cooking (or your stove isn't working, for that matter!).

I've been trying to meet Italians, but so far have been mostly unsuccessful... But it's only been a week so far so I have plenty of time. I have met one Italian, the roommate of some of the IES guys, Guglielmo (the Italian version of William), and he's really nice and patient when I try to  practice my Italian. It's been fun to learn what  Italians do and don't say in conversation (even if it IS in our textbooks) while talking to him, and I've even been able to translate some of the other Americans' conversations into Italian for him so that he can better understand, which is fun! It makes me feel like I can actually speak Italian. :)

We're still in our "orientation period" at IES, so we've been doing a bunch of group activities in the afternoons. On Monday, for example, we went on a group trip to a winery tour and wine tasting. We're in the Chianti region of Tuscany, so we learned how Chianti Classico wine is made, how it's flavored, etc. It was a really interesting tour, and the wine tasting afterward was wonderful. They had a big spread of bread, cheese, and meat (very Italian), and we tried three different wines: a Chardonnay, which won the title of second best Chardonnay in the world last year, and was therefore delicious; a Chianti Classico, the red wine that this particular winery specializes in; and lastly what they call a "Super Tuscan" wine, which is a term that originated in the U.S. and denotes a mixture of different red grapes from all over Tuscany. [My favorite was the Chardonnay!]

here's me in front of a huuuge barrel of Chianti Classico

these barrels can cost up to 20,000 euros, but can be used for up to 30 years

On Tuesday we visited a church and museum dedicated to the contrada of Onda. Contradas are very specific to Siena, and they are areas/neighborhoods of the city with distinct borders, each given an animal or other mascot. For example, Onda's is the wave and I live in the "Istrice" contrada, which means porcupine! :) There are 17 contradas in all, and those compete in the semi-annual horse race in the city center - Il Palio. It's  a really big deal in Siena, and most of the contradas' citizens don't even talk to each other when the Palio is coming up. It's a long-running tradition here that started in the 1400s, and it honors the Republic of Siena, which fell to Florence in the 1300s. -- Ok, end of lesson! Anyway, we got to see all of the traditional Palio costumes and flags from Onda, and it was really neat because they usually don't let people that aren't part of the contrada into their church.

group picture in the Onda contrada museum! (that's me on the bottom right)

Then yesterday, the IES group had an expedition into the ancient underground aqueduct beneath Siena, called the "Bottini". It's basically a tiny tunnel, built in the 1300s, that spans the entire city and was used as a well-system. So we took a tour down there, each with a flashlight, walking single-file, ducking our heads for most of the time, and occasionally slipping on the wet floor. It was great. :) We had an Italian tour guide and our director Amanda was translating. You usually have to reserve a tour about 9 months ahead of time, but  Amanda seems to know pretty much everyone in Siena, and she tells us that she uses her so-called "Mafia Connections" to get us into all these things. :)

inside the bottini - here you can see the tiny passageways we were walking through, 

with the water flowing beneath us

Ok that's it for now. These posts are too long (sorry!) so I think I'll try to post shorter ones more often instead from now on... Oh, and this weekend I'm planning to take a trip to Bologna, since we have no classes tomorrow! So I must go plan buses and a hostel and whatnot... I hope everyone is doing well! I miss you all.