What have you done these days? is basically what this means, assuming I used the correct grammar. This is the question my Italian teacher asked me today, and the question which I will attempt to answer for you now assuming I can recall all of it (that you will be interested in) in a reasonable amount of time and space!
When she asked me I paused and looked up at the ceiling, and said "molte cose, molte cose, che cose direi?" Or I would have said that if I spoke half as well as I write, which I don't, but whatever I did say I can assure you was supposed to mean this in English. And the English translation is: many things, many things, what things should I tell?
Gianfranco sums up the weather of the last few days quite well. Every time the news comes on and shows the map of Italy and little raining clouds all over it, he says, "Pioggia. Pioggia, Pioggia. Sempre Pioggia." (Rain. Rain, Rain. Always rain). And so it has, except for today, rained without fail every afternoon, and usually at times when I am far from cover and without an umbrella. Yesterday I tried to study at the park on the fort. I even told Nicola that I was going there (he understood me, too) but then I got almost all the way there and the rain started, so I dived into CET instead and sat there awhile. Later my art history class got caught in the rain while walking around looking at architecture.
That was still a very interesting trip though. We saw how you can see the history of Siena just in the buildings. When Siena started to grow, it was because the Francigena road, a road for religous pilgrims, ran through Siena. Otherwise, there would be no city of Siena today, or it would be insignificant. Siena grew rich off the travelers on this road and off of the traveling Sienese merchants were able to do using the road. You can see buildings from the time when the most powerful people in Siena were soldiers and crusaders and the system was feudal. These oldest buildings, which people still live in, are closed off. They did not want outsiders coming in and wanted to be able to defend themselves. The second group that held power was the merchants. Their houses were open, with stores on the bottom and apartments on higher floors. The taller the building, the wealthier the merchant. And on. You can see places where renovations have happened, changed in styles of the windows (small in medieval times, pointed arch in gothic era, and rectangular in the Renaissance). You can see how Siena has grown and changed over hundreds of years.
That was art history! Ah, and then there was the market. That was before the rain came.
I don't have class before three at all until July. So, I have all morning free, every day. Everyone else is in class too. It actually (and maybe not surprisingly) gets a little lonely, and I just talked to our resident director today about maybe doing activities occasionally with the 3000 level students so that I am not alone every day from when I get up until 5:30 except for my professor and an hour when I am able to meet up with the other students for lunch. That is a tangent though. The market!
Every Wednesday morning there is a market at La Lizza, the park around la fortezza. I thought little arts market flea market type thing, maybe thirty or so small tents with the things people have made, maybe more, and not taking up much space. I was wrong.
This market is a mall. People bring out vans and tents and set up shops on the roads around la fortezza. The wares are not just little handmade crafts and food. Clothes, shoes, hardware, umbrellas (buying one next wednesday per la pioggia), anything you can think of set up along several full streets on two sides of the fort. I didn't really stop to look at anything for long and it took me an hour to see all of the stands. I will be back.
When I got home that evening, I was sitting at dinner with my family here and watching the news, and a small segment came on about a bear running around people's backyards in Florida. I learned after talking to my mom yesterday that this bear was actually only about five or ten minutes away from my house, and making news across the ocean. A connection to home! And a rather odd one.
Today there was more! But it does not take as much to describe, so I will be quick. I had the entire morning free, so I wrote my composition for my Italian class, and then went out and found a book store and an art store, both of which I am sure I will be visiting very soon. I then bought a book at a store I had already found. I got the Italian version of the Hobbit. It is called...Lo Hobbit (pronounced Lo Obeet. Drop the h and pronounce the I like the e's in meet). You can probably guess what this is a translation of. I have wanted the Italian version for a while, so that was very exciting! I am still looking at Italian books and trying to decide what I want to buy. Fortunately I have seven more weeks to make that decision.
I went today with the 3000 level class to work on a project and someone realized that one of the guys on the program and I had inadvertently worn the exact same colors: light yellow shirts and red. We then had other students realize at two different times and make us take pictures twice.
And one last thing, just because I am quite proud of myself...at least I admit it. My teacher confirmed that my grammar in Italian is just fine, and very good. I just need to get my spoken grammar to match my written grammar. That was very exciting to hear!
A little scattered today I guess, but there were many things to tell!
