I guess it’s about time for another blog entry, huh? I know it may seem like I’ve been keeping you guys in the dark about what I’ve been up to ever since my Florence post, which was almost two weeks ago, but I’ve just been sooo busy with school, studying, socializing, and sightseeing in the city of Siena – oh, and sleeping, but not even a whole lot of that! – that I haven’t had a free waking moment to type up anything other than written compositions for my Italian classes. But since it is Friday and the weekend is here, I will spend my early evening catching you guys up on la mia vita italiana!
As you might have guessed, my classes have been taking up the bulk of my time here in Siena. Don’t think for a second that I’m complaining about that, though, because I love the classes here and every other Italian and foreign language class I’ve taken. Also, as far as my career choice and plans for a master’s degree go, I know that these are the classes that are going to benefit me the most in those aspects, and for the rest of my life. (By the way, those plans are to be a high school Italian and French teacher with a master’s degree in Italian. My university in Georgia doesn’t even actually offer a bachelor’s degree in Italian, but I am on track to get a bachelor’s degree in French, and with a total of four college Italian classes taken in the United States and four taken abroad in Italy, I will have enough credits to eventually be certified to teach both languages, and enroll in a master’s degree program in either or both.) Anyways, I placed into the fourth level out of six at the Università per Stranieri di Siena, and the subjects we have been focusing on the most are the subjunctive tense (il congiuntivo) and the past, present, and imperfect forms of that tense, and also transferring texts from direct to indirect discourse.
If you’re not a language buff and thinking about all of that is making your brain hurt, you’d probably prefer to hear about my classes on a more fun scale, such as the people around the world with whom I am in class. I have classmates here from all over North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa, and it is so crazy to think that I am using Italian to talk to people from places like Germany, Japan and Syria. I just think it’s so cool that people who speak such different languages (English, Spanish, German, Chinese, Japanese and Arabic) can come together in one room and still speak the same language with one another. If we didn’t have our knowledge of Italian in common, we quite literally would not be able to communicate with one another or form some of the friendships we have made.
Like me, some of my classmates are also on track to teach Italian in their home country. There is one girl from Germany who wants to teach Italian at the high school level, and another from Scotland who will actually be teaching English in Puglia, Italy (the heel of the boot) for ten months starting in the fall. Also, within the past three weeks we have had students come and go in our class who are actually teachers of Italian in their home countries, most of them from Lebanon, and who are either working towards their master’s degrees or just coming to get extra practice with the language and teaching strategies. One of them was actually not a teacher but a translator, and the fact that I was in the same class with people who are already teaching and translating Italian as careers just blew my mind!
Now on to some of the recent adventures I’ve had and the places and sights I have seen. Last Saturday, after finally getting to sleep in for the first time in weeks, Maria and I decided to be tourists in our own city and poke around and explore Siena. We finally got to see Siena’s Duomo and took streets we had never before taken. All throughout last week, after living solely on pizza, pasta and gelato for most of our time in Italy, Maria and I were craving some good old American cuisine and decided that that weekend we would take the bus outside of the Siena city center and go to the McDonald’s we went to with Tony and Alvaro when we first got to Siena a couple of weeks before. We hopped on one of the buses we thought was going where we need to go, and got off where we saw a sign for McDonald’s, but after searching in two or three different directions from the sign, we still weren’t seeing it anywhere. We walked around for about an hour or so looking for it, or any place to eat at that point, since we were starving. We eventually ended up taking the bus back to the main train station, where we knew there was a mall and a food court, and grabbed some hamburgers and French fries. So everything ended up working out, and we got back to the city center perfectly fine, but we were laughing about the fact that our professor Tony told us that Siena was impossible to get lost in, and we were positive that we were going to prove him wrong at some point, and we did! Haha :)
Since Tony got back to Siena from Spain at the beginning of the week, every day since Monday we have been meeting up with him after our classes get out and visiting a different landmark, church or museum in Siena. On Tuesday we visited the Basilica di San Domenico, which contains several relics of Saint Catherine of Siena, who lived from 1347-1380 and is the patroness saint of Rome, Italy and Europe. The relics in the Basilica are Saint Catherine’s actual head and finger, so they were pretty darn amazing to see! Today Tony took us to Siena’s Duomo, where there was also a relic of another well-known saint – the right arm and hand of Saint John the Baptist! The relics of the saints are probably the coolest things I’ve seen in Italy thus far :)
Since Siena is a pretty touristy destination (what place in Tuscany isn’t?), there are signs everywhere (especially at the museums and churches) that are written in five languages – Italian, English, French, German and Spanish. I love seeing so many languages, and I always try to decipher the signs in Italian or French before reading the English translation. Italy is absolutely amazing, and I still have two months left in this country and so much to see and do! This weekend (actually, seven hours from now) I am leaving Siena to go to Rome with Maria, Alvaro and Tony! So there will most definitely be another blog entry either Sunday night or Monday afternoon (or Sunday afternoon/Monday morning U.S. time). This Tuesday in class I have my written final, Wednesday I have my oral final which I am doing with my Canadian friend Kylin, and after that I will be finished with my classes in Siena!
Next Thursday we will be visiting Montepulciano and maybe Perugia and Assisi as well, and on Friday we will see the towns of Lucca and Pisa. And finally, one week from today, I will finally be in Sicily with my cousins and extended family who live there, some of whom I didn’t even know existed at this time last year! Everything is happening so fast and I can’t believe that Sicily is almost here! I am certain that my week-long vacation in Sicily is going to be my favorite part of my trip, just because how many people get to meet their distant relatives in another country? How many people even know their distant relatives in other countries? I really am so blessed :) I’m also looking forward to speaking only in Italian and only to native speakers while I am in Sicily. I’m speaking Italian a lot in Siena, but of course there are English-speaking students in my class with whom I often use my native language, so I can’t wait to be thrust into a situation where I will have to speak Italian with everybody I encounter! It’s going to be so cool :)
Vado a Roma! Ciao!
Chloe
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