Inside Student Blogslivin’ la bella vitaSiena, Fall 2010
I am currently writing this post on a back patio in Mallorca, Spain, sipping on a glass of vino rosso. I’ve been abroad now almost two and a half weeks and the main chunk of it’s been in Italy. My cousin, Alex, and I flew in to Florence via Zurich and LAX and stayed in Florence for a few nights with friends that flew in from Spain. We heard from a waitress at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant that the place to go during Ferragosto (a 15 day holiday the Italians take during the beginning of August) was Viareggio so we decided to do as the Italians do and hang out on the beach there for a day.
After that we went to Siena and saw the Palio – a medieval horse race with no rules whatsoever and is considered the biggest and best festival in Italy. Following that we visited Cinque Terre for several nights, I’d recommend putting that at the top of your list of ”places I need to visit while abroad.”
I have cousins that live in Torino and in Massa so Alex and I went and stayed with each of them for several nights and visited the castles of the Savoy and saw the marble mines in Carrara in the Alps – which are also must visit locations. They didn’t speak any English so now I am proud to say my Italian has improved a ton and I’m able to actually find my way around without asking “parli inglese?” every 5 seconds. Now I am visiting a friend who has a villa in Mallorca for several days before my program begins on the 6th. I’m really looking forward to starting my program and to meeting a ton of new people there since Santa Clara University is only sending one other student to Siena.
To all of you who haven’t made the trip over the pond yet, buon viaggio!
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