day trip to Siena!

As usual, we went to class, had a coffee break, then went back to class. However, today I decided to switch it up and get fancy and order the chocolate croissant instead of the classic jelly filled one! Lemme tell ya... its pretty amazing. Class today was interesting too because I am 99% sure that my teacher does not speak English. She speaks in only Italian (which is normal for a language class back in the States) but when we do not understand something she can barely explain it in English and half the time she has no idea what we are trying to ask her!! It is honestly frustrating for everyone, but especially those who don't know any Italian at all. I can somewhat understand her when she doesn't know what she is talking about but I know for certainty that she never has any idea what I am saying when I speak in English. Today I was reading and the lines switched to another character in the story so I asked her if she wanted someone else to read (which I don't know how to say that in Italian so I asked in English) and she had no idea what I was talking about and got mad and just read it herself. It was hilarious looking back because we all knew what I was trying to say to her but she was so lost. We will make some progress eventually... After class we ran and go a sandwich on our way to the hotel to drop off our books and get ready to go to Siena! It is about a 1 hour bus ride from Florence, which ended up being a nice break from walking all day long. The bus ride was gorgeous!! Going through the small towns and field land in Tuscany is absolutely better than any post card or picture I have ever seen. Nothing is able to capture it's beauty. Justine and I have started this goofy bit where one of us will see something amazing and be like "well I guess it's ok" then the other goes "honestly it kinda sucks..." then we laugh because we just have no way to express how beautiful we think everything is. When we reached Siena we went up a mountain (not quite a mountain but for a southern girl it was a mountain) and landed right outside the main part of the town. We went on a walking tour where we went inside a church, then hit both towers in the city. The first church we went into had the preserved face and finger of Saint Catherine of Siena which honestly was gross... They put wax over the body parts to preserve them so people can still look at them. It was quite disturbing. But after we went in that church we made our way down the most amazing streets in Siena before hitting their Duomo. I learned duomo is a generic name for a Cathedral... but in Florence there still is "the Duomo." Anyways, on our way to the cathedral we went down very steep stone streets with houses that are portrayed in post cards - all different yet fitting together perfectly. I was able to play around a lot with my camera, using my friends as my models of course!! It was so much fun and I felt like we were all in a photo shoot or set of a movie! Once we reached the cathedral I swear my life was changed. It was the most magnificent church I have ever seen - pink and purple stone accents to the white marble. All hand carved in the tiniest detail you could possibly imagine, and they did it in only 40 months. I don't even know how to fathom that sort of work. Inside was amazing too, so full of rich history and stories of the people who once used that church to worship the same God that we do today in a much less structured setting. It was incredible to see all the alters and portraits and ritual settings that they used, and probably still use today. It was fascinating to see how old, yet still spectacular, everything is and to know that even thousands of years ago when this church was built, that God was the same and people loved Him just the same as we do today. The dedication and love in the church was breathtaking. After we left the church, against our own free will... we headed to the main town square. This is where the tower is that is represented in Epcot's version of Italy!! It was so incredibly high, I am so thankful for Disney teaching me to look out and make sure I got a million pictures of it!! Our tour ended in this square so we all had some time to explore before heading back to Florence. First, we went and got post cards while we waited for the line to die down at this small little stand that serves a quintessential food of Siena. We had no idea what this food would be, but we figured we had to try it while we were there! It turned out to be small fired balls of dough, but the ingredient made it into something that I have never tasted before. There is nothing that I have experienced that could be compared to it! They were delicious and the outside was friend and crunchy like a funnel cake or elephant ear would be from the fair, but the inside was much softer and gooey. It had flavors of citrus in it also, with sugar on top of them. The combination of all the flavors sounded weird when I read the ingredients list, but it was strongly addicting and delicious! We then found a European makeup store that had such amazing deals so of course us girls went in and all got

something to try! I got some eye shadow that my makeup crazy friends, Alexa and Sarah, told me would compliment my blue eyes wonderfully! Then we went into a gelato shop before heading back to go to the bus. Alexa and I split one with a more sugary version of vanilla, mixed with orange and mango! It tasted like a creme-sicle!! The bus ride home was so relaxing I am pretty sure everyone fell asleep... but we got back right in time for dinner at the hotel where we had meat ravioli, parmesan eggplant, and teremasue (sorry I know that's misspelled). After dinner we all studied for our first quiz tomorrow together, then headed off to bed!! It sure was an incredible first excursion day!