Class, Class, Class....

This week of class is so intense. Yesterday we had 6 hours of Italian... language overload. Although having only taken 7 classes I feel like I know a good amount, or at least I could get my point across in most instances if I really thought about it. The full immersion thing really does help I guess.
Last night we went out to dinner and one of the girls ordered a 1kg steak. We thought it was only 4euros and kind of laughed to oursleves when the waiter told us there was a smaller one that was listed for14euros. We wondered why he would offer a smaller but more expensive steak to us. We found out later when we got the bill that her steak was 4euros per a certain amount of wieght and her steak ended up being 44 euros. Of course we all laughed at ourselves for being so stupid, the girl that ordered it however wasn't to happy. Maybe we should listen to the waiter next time rather than thinking hes trying to rip us off.
Class today was so boring, i think i tried harder to stay awake than trying to learn. Although it may be that I can't really sleep through the night here that is causing me to fall asleep in class rather than the content... maybe both.
Tonight we have a wine tasting class that should last two hours then i'm sure we'll go out to dinner. I swear the only thing we do here is EAT EAT EAT learn EAT EAT EAT try to sleep EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT...

Ciao Amici

two posts in one day!?

So I didn't end up going to the soccer game today because we walked there, no one was dressed in very warm clothes, it was 20 eruos AND we waited in line for liek 20 minutes and got no where so we left. We will be making it there in florence though.

Besides that I had a VERY american night. I went to get CHINESE food for dinner. It was halirous. There were four of us girls and they waitresses did not speak any english. So we had to point to everythign we wanted and act out what we needed. One thing that really bugs me about italy is that you don't get water! You always have to buy bottled water or die of thirst. One thing to be thankful for when i get home will for sure be that water is available to me at all times. The food was really good though or at least we thought so because it was something different. Execept for our main course three out of four of us got "sweet and sour" something and it was essentially just a puff of fried bread that I couldn't not stop laughing about. I guess you had to be there. We literally asked for the check though 15 times before it was finally brought to us...language barrier= terrible.

After dinner we went to an irish pub to watch the colts vs. jets there was a big group of us and we played never have i ever but backwards. I guess it was just a really funny night cause i think everyone was laughing through that game too. Americans are very loud, we had one crazy italian come up to us and yell, but his friend was laughing and pulled him away. Sarah and Anna both bought bottles of wine for themselves... bad move on thier part. Sarah was talking nonsenese about how someone poured christmas into her glass and how she was drinking pine needles no one is sure what she really meant. Anyway, I have to be getting to bed, i have my first "two a day" tomorrow. Is it bad that i'm alraedy dreading classes? This week is going to be tourture with two double classes, a quiz, and essentially 2 finals. YUCK! wish me luck :)

It looks like my suitcase threw up

Well, its sunday which means my first full weekend in Siena is over. The days are kind of starting to all mix together and i'm fully ready to get to florence! I went for a walk around the whole city and there were some really pretty views of the city. This is one of my cheesy pics that we took, the sun is actually setting behind me but it doesn't show up in this picture for some reason. It also took us a good half hour to figure out how to get up on top of the track we were on... Friday night Kate and I had everyone over in our room to pregame. Bad decision. Red wine was spilled all over our beds and floors and we woke up to 15 bottles all over the place. Afer that we we went out to a "club" called Gallery. It was super crowded and everything was very expensive.It was fun though. There was dancing and i got to see Liz who was visiting her friend Christina so that was nice so see someone from school. I wore a brand new white shirt out and needless to say it is no longer white. It is now a beautiful

combination of red white and black... great. I'll need to get that dry cleaned asap. Later in the night i thought i lost all my money so i was in a bad mood, i found it the next morning in my camera case. I guess i'm not a very good searcher. We also got chicken sandwhichs late night style and we had to play charades with the people at the resturant trying to get them to understand what we wanted.

On Saturday i slept in until 2:30!! Trying to catch up on some sleep. Then i got lunch really late and did pretty much nothing else the rest of the day. Then we were getting ready to go out. I was all dressed up, had a few beers and then decieded I was to tired/probably drank to much oops so I just went to bed. It was a good decision ha. Now I'm about to go out to lunch with our group and then i'm not sure what else is going on. There is a soccer game that i might try and go to but we will see! I also have to clean up my stuff. Living out of a suitcase is difficult and my clothes are so disorganized. It looks like my suitcaes threw up all over my side of the room. Anyway I have to run now BYE!

I'm coming back Fat and Broke

Yesterday after class I took a long nap since i really haven't had a good night of sleep since I arrived in Europe. Of course I was still tired afterward and ended up staying up really late anyway because I had a cooking class and studying to do for my first quiz! The cooking class took 5 hours! it was way to long but the food we made was delicous... I honestly think it was one of my favorite meals so far. We took the class at la scuola di cucina di lella and made pappa col pomodoro, pici all' aglione, gnocchi al gorgonzola, and tiramisu o cenci. The pomodoro (which is a soup of tomatoes and bread essentially) was soooo good, but i was also starving so that might have effected my taste buds ha. The gnocchi was also really good. We had to make the noodles for thePici all'agloine... this is a picture of Mallory and me rolling them out. They are a thicker spaghetti and it is SOOO time consuming. Most people were terrible at it so when we ate them we had some ugly looking noodles. But i guess it all gets mushed up in your mouth anyway :)

Today we had our first quiz. It was a lot easier than I expected which is good because I was too tired to study for very long. After class we went for lunch and I decided I needed something other than pasta cause all these carbs are going to make me obese! Unfortunatly I got chicken that was legitimately soaking in like a centimeter of butter so i doubt it was any healthier. Tonight we have a happy hour with our teachers! Your also allowed to drink wine in class... I wouldn't because i would probably fall asleep but some kids to. Thats soo strange to me.

Anyway, i have to go now Ciao!

A Few Pictures!

This is some of the group we went out with last night and this is the drink that made my italian class today HELL. Going out like that on a school night should probably never happen again. After this resturant we went to the Red Barron again... no 15 year olds this time. The owner of the bar liked me though he got me like 5 shots of tequila as i was leaving. I didn't take them thank goodness. The picture next to it is the view from our hotel. Its one of the few spots you can see open land... everything else is buildings! But everything is so pretty

This is the Duomo in Siena, this picture does not do it justice, it is absolutly unbelievable. The inside is just as ornate and the whole thing is this really cool black and white stripe pattern. It is hidden behind building and since i've walked past it a million times without going to check it out, me and Kate (my roomate) finally deceided to go see it! Were standing in front of the giagantic door! I do realize she is like a foot taller than me haha

Italian!

Today was the first day of school. We had a 4 hour class in which they only spoke in Italian, it was pretty absurd. I realized by the end though that by the entire time was spend learning only 4 sentences and how to count to 20. I forgot how difficult it was to learn languages! But i can say "my name is..." mi chiamo Laura! ha and i can say where i'm from, how old I am, and my phone number... which was kind of a wierd thing for us to learn. Are they encouraging us to give out our numbers to strangers? We also got homework tonight, 5 exercises. I also forgot how much I dislike busy work.

Anyway, after class we had lunch and I got some ravioli in a butter sauce that was delicous. Then we had another meeting that was BORING and then I spent 4 hours with Kate and Mallory trying to get school supplies and a phone. Needless to say phone vendors do not speak English and trying not to get ripped off is very difficult. I also spent the equivalent of 30 dollars on a three ring binder and loose leaf paper woohoo! I'm glad the american to italian exchange rate is soo good...NOT. Although it took us forever to get our stuff done today, im glad we ventured so far looking for a phone company cuase I realized that we have not seen much of Siena at all. Hopefully tomorrow we'll venture further. I ended my day with dinner, we went to some place is the plaza that is always so croweded. I got salad in attempt to keep myself from getting sick of pasta. It was okay. We sat outside though which was a bad move considering tonights "short" dinner was an hour and half long and when i got home none of my fingers had color in them. oh well, it was still a good day and I'm still loving Siena!

A Mouse in a Maze

I arrived in Siena yesterday and Italy is absolutly amazing. It took us 12 hours between traveling to the airport, flying, and travling to Siena from Pisa. It was a long day but obviously worth it. The city is walled in and the whole thing is just a series of connected, 4 story, buildings that line the streets which are no wider than a car. I feel like a little mouse running through a maze. Its so easy to get lost! Last night they had a delicous 4 course meal set up for us. We started with some bruchetta, then had rosoto, followed by chicken and ended with dessert! oo and of course plenty of wine. After dinner we went to a local bar/small clubish thing which was intresting... there were some 15 year olds there! On our way home we got lost and it took us an hour to find our way back but we were in a group for like 12 so it was fun.
Today we had orientation, purchased our books, and they program provided drinks for us at the school so we could see where it was. Then I went to dinner with the same group of people i've been hanging out with. Dinners are so long, even for just pizza we were sitting there for almost 2.5 hours!
Anyway, class starts tomorrow at 830 so I have to get to bed so I can mentally prepare for the task that is conquering the Italian language :)

you sound like you're from LONDON

The plane ride was not that bad, started off watching Julie&Julia, Good movie actually pretty funny. I made some friends on the plane and the girl that was sitting next to me is wearing the same thing as me! Ha it was funny but she was actually Michaels age and going to London for work which was unfortunate because she was really nice. The food was okay not terrible for airplanes. And to drink, I had a beer! When I had to pee however I stood in front of the door trying to figure out how to open it and one of the stewards had to push it open for me and kind of laughed to himself. Then the when I flushed it scared me and I jumped because it was so loud. I guess I haven’t been in a airplane bathroom in a while. I also watched the Time Travels Wife. Its really sad. Watching two movies tricks you though cause you think the flight is almost over and then you look at the time and more than three hours still remain. Boo

My first experience in Europe was a NIGHTMARE. I couldn’t find Emily, and I was forced to walk around with some ugly coastie bitches ha. But after going to starbucks 3 times for internet and paying at the hotel, I finally met Emily at 4pm. We walked to Harrods and got to feel bad for ourselves that we couldn’t afford 1200 dollar shoes. And yes of course I had to check out every shoe, I found like 12 pairs that I want. One day I will go back and buy them all . Then we met some really cool people from California and from Illinois and went to dinner in a big group. I ordered a chicken sandwich was a big mistake in a pub known for their fish and chips because it tasted like fish but bad fish yuck! After we went to Camden Sq for some drinks. We took the tube there and had to cab it back. Unfortunately their accent and our accent does not mix well and we ended up going to the wrong place and having a very expensive ride.

Today we went to see all the big sites. Big ben, Westminster abby, the palace (which is over rated), the eye, St Pauls cathedral, millennium bridge, tower bridge, the bridge of London, picadilli circus, and EVERYTHING in between. Everything is so amazing and the detail on every building is so awesome. Tonight were going back to picadilli (or however you spell it) to hit up da clubs ha. We leave tomorrow at 5am! Then I’ll be in SIENA I’m so excited

LOVE AND MISS EVERYONE

ONE WEEK

ITS PRACTICALLY HERE! 

I can not believe it. This summer I was so leisurely completing the requirements to study abroad and here I am, less than a week until I leave! For some strange reason it still does not feel real, maybe once I board my flight ha. I still have yet to start packing, everyone else's stories are making me nervous. I have to fit four months of stuff into one bag...what!? It will be hard but thank goodness my mom bought me me those "Space Saver" bags that always advertised on tv. You know, the ones that you use a vacuum to shrink. I  am not sure if they work or not, I guess I will see. 

I bought a little Italian phrase book and dictionary at Boarders this afternoon. Its going to be interesting to learn another language, hopefully it comes easier to me than Spanish did. I would not bet on it though. The book should be really helpful, its tiny so it fits in my clutch and it has pretty much every sentence I would need to get my point across to the locals. My accent will be terrible but OH WELL. Needless to say I am soooo excited! This should be a fantastic semester :)