Pictures

The City Square in Siena



The View on the way to San Gimignano



The World Champion Gelateria, Pluripremiata



A Radom Fountain in the Boboli Gardens



Another View of the Gardens

Siena, San Gimignano, Boboli Gardens

I've done quite a bit since the last time I posted. First off Friday night was awful. A group of Italians decided that hanging out in front of our apartment window was going to be a great idea. So from about 1 till like 4 in the morning we could hear their whole entire conversations. It was our worst night here thus far and not to mention we had to meet the rest of our group around 9 in the morning to go to Siena.

We had about an hour or so bus ride to get to Siena. Once we got there we were split up into two groups and we started our walking tour of Siena. Our tour guide took us all around the surrounding city and explained to us how all the different parts of the city were split into 17 different neighborhoods. Each one of these neighborhoods was represented by a certain animal and each neighborhood was marked on the corners of almost all buildings with that neighborhoods crest. If you look at Austin's blog he made a list of all of them. We also walked to a square that housed the oldest bank in Italy. We then walked to the city square. It was huge. There she explained to us about the square itself as well as the Palio. The Palio is a horse race held twice a year (July 2nd and August 16th) between 10 of the neighborhoods. The fill the outside of the square with dirt and the horses race around the shell shaped square. It's known to be one of the most difficult horse races in the world because the jockeys ride barebacked. After the tour we had a little free time and a group of about 10 of us went to eat. I had stuffed pasta with ricota and spinach. As we were leaving Siena to go about another 30 minutes on the bus to San Gimignano we all decided that we were going to try to come back to see the Palio on July 2nd.

I'll be honest I had never really heard of San Gimignano, but after the 30 minute bus ride I realized that this was going to be a really cool place. We once again had another walking tour of the city, and one of the first things that our tour guide told us was that San Gimignano was famous for their towers. At one point in history they had something like 70ish towers but now there are only like 11 or 12 left. After the tour we went ate gelato at the two time world champion gelateria, Pluripremiata. It was the best gelato I've ever had. We then just walked around for about an hour then hopped back on the bus to head back to Florence. Later in the night Austin, Eli, and I invited people over to just hang out at our apartment.

On Sunday, there was a group of about 7 of us that decided to go to the Boboli Gardens. The gardens are located behind the Pitti Palace, home of the Medici family. I had never heard of them but they were beautiful. They were also huge. We spent about two hours just walking around the gardens and just tried to get lost. Then for the rest of the afternoon we just hung out at the apartment and just relaxed. It was a nice sunday afternoon.

It's crazy to think that we are starting our second week of school already and that we only got about five and half weeks left in Italy. Thats all for now I'm working on putting up pictures and hopefully they'll be up soon.

Trent

Big Day

Today was a big day for us. We finally got our wireless internet set up in our apartment. They are still going to have to do some more work on it to make it a little bit faster and such but right now we actually have it so it's nice. Short post but just thought it was important to note. Also means that posts should come more often now.

Today

Today was the first day of classes. Austin and I are taking a class together that is called Human Resource Management with a teacher who is quite an interesting man. His name is Andrea. He is was born in Italy but he told us that he had some Scottish roots in him which come out sometimes whenever he is speaking. We think that the class won't be to bad because of him. Also there is only three weeks of classes and he tolds us that he would tell us pretty much what is on the test at the end so I'm not to worried. He is a very interesting teacher who actually sparks a conversation in us. Our class is rather small too which probably helps. There only about 8 of us in class with 4 being guys and obviously the other 4 being girls. The only thing that is a little nerver racking is that half of our overall grade is based on our final test. Another fourth of it is based on this oral presentation but he made it seem like it wouldn't dictate to much and that if you pretty much did it and sounded knowledgeable then you would get all the points for it. Then the other fourth is based on attendance and participation. So not to bad.

After class Eli, Austin, George (our friend from South Carolina), and I went back to the Oil Shoppe. If you cant tell we really like this place, it's cheap, and it's really close to us. Well I'm 2 for 2 on going there. The first time I got the world famous meatball sub which was incredible and then this time I got a roast beef and sautéed spinach sandwich that rivals the meatball as incredible. The sandwich, fries, and a water was all under 6 Euros which is actually pretty cheap around here. Then after lunch we all came back to the apartment and celebrated the Italian tradition of the afternoon Siesta. It was wonderful. And tonight the girls are once again cooking up a big family style dinner for all of us. Cant get much better can it?

Thats all for now. I don't feel like coping Austin's post about our 'group' so if you want to know a little more as to who I'm talking about go over to his blog and check it out.

Trent

Piazza Michelangelo

Today we woke up to Austin feverishly typing on his computer. This could only mean one thing...Our internet must have been working. As some of you may or may not know we don't currently have internet in our apartment that you could call consistent. We are supposed to have it but when we talked to our land lord the other day she informed us that it wasn't actually working at the moment so right now we are just bumming it off our neighbors open networks. It's probably not the safest thing but you got to do what you got to do. Also the people that were talking outside of our window this morning at 5 in the morning helped wake us up a little as well but oh well. Well thanks to us getting a little internet we talked to a few other people that we've been hanging out with and they told us about how they were going to the Piazza Michelangelo. I had never heard of it but the other two guys had and they were talking pretty highly of it. So we decided to meet them over at their apartment which is only about a 10 minute walk from where we live so it wasn't to bad. In case you didn't know the Piazza Michelangelo is a church that is on top of this hill that over looks the whole entire city of Florence and actually the picture that is above this on my blog is a picture I took there this afternoon of the Duomo. It was beautiful though. The picture below is a picture of the view from the Piazza.

On the way back we stopped at a little square where there was some kind of reenactment of some kind of celebration or something. It was pretty cool but it was also a little weird cause we didn't exactly know what was going on. We actually stopped to get gelato and heard a bunch of drumming and we turned the corner to see these people throwing flags around and just kind of dancing along with the drums. I After that we just headed home to kind of take it easy and get ready for our classes that start tomorrow. Ciao for now.

The Oil Shoppe and Random Info

Yesterday Eli, Austin, and I were looking for a good place to eat at so we walked out our door and turned left and saw this little shop called the Oil Shoppe. Both Austin and Eli were saying that people had told them to eat there because of just how good it was. So we decided to have lunch there and we saw a little sign that claimed that they had the best meatball sub in the world. So naturally we had to try this sub to see if this bold claim was actually true. While we were discussing it a couple over heard us and started talking to us about and ironically enough they were from Frisco and the guy went to A&M. Thought that was pretty random. But overall the meatball sub could be one of the best ones I've ever had. We are about to go on a walking tour of Florence and then we have a welcome dinner tonight. Then classes start on Monday. It's slowly but surely sinking in that we are here for awhile.

Trent

Finally in Florence

Ciao, we are finally here in Florence. It was another long day of traveling to get here from Rome since we had to take a bus here but when we finally got here it was well worth it. Austin, Eli, and I are staying in an apartment that is literally about a block from the Duomo. Our apartment is in the city center too which makes it very convient to get any where. We are very close to our school as well as all the other apartments and not to mention all the restaurants. We are on the first floor right inside of the building so it wasn't to much trouble to move into like some of the apartments on the 4th or 5th floors of their buildings. Also our apartment is brand new and if I'm not mistaken they said that we were the first people to live in here. We have two rooms each about the same size with one being our bedroom and the other being our common room/kitchen/bathroom. It's a very nice set up for us.

Yesterday was very nice. We had a lot of free time so a group of about ten of us decided to go walk around Florence. While we were walking we stumbled upon a Square where there were a lot of people just hanging out and we ended up just sitting there for about an hour just talking and people watching. I feel like people watching went to a whole new level after doing it here. Needless to say there are some very interesting people here in Italy.

I'm still working on getting my cell phone. We went by the store today and talked to a guy that had no earthly idea what was going on or what we were saying. We'll being going back this afternoon to try to get it then. Also we don't have reliable wireless yet so we are still working on that and in the meantime we are just kind of bumming it off our neighbors in our building. It will do the job for now but hopefully we'll have our own here in a few days.

Rome

Just wanted to keep y'all posted a little bit. Well I'm here in Rome now and loving it. Our flights weren't to bad. I think I slept the whole way from London to Rome so that was helpful but still I'm pretty tired. I got a little nervous yesterday at the airport because it took forever fo one of my bags to actually show up but no worries because I finally got it. Eli, Austin, and I have already started meeting quite a few people. We went out to dinner last night with about 12 people and then walked around Rome afterwards. We even stumbled upon this thing called the Colosseum, don't know if anyone has heard of it.

Either way it hasn't really set in that I'm actually in Rome. After all of our traveling to get here yesterday I think I'm still just to tired to actually take in the fact that I'm here. Even more so it's crazy to think that I'm going to be here or rather in Florence for the next 7 weeks. I think it might start to sink in today after we visit the Vatican and then go on a walking tour of the Colosseum. It's truly incredible to just see the things around Rome and think about how old they are and how much history is actually behind all of it. Don't worry Mom I'm taking a lot of pictures and yes I'm making sure that people take pictures with me in them. Today should be a fun day and I'll start posting pictures on here for certain things once we get to Florence and actually have more stable internet then just paying for an hour of it at our Hotel.

We are walking out the door now though so I will post more later. Ciao.