Under the Tuscan Sun

I have been in Italy for a month now and I still can not believe it somedays. It is like a dream. Life has definitely slowed down from our adventures in rome. We are living in Siena in apartments as real Italians. Siena is so cute, I love it. It is in the middle of Tuscany and has such an Italian feel to it. Only people who live in Centro (in the downtown city walls) are allowed to drive in the city walls so the streets are ruled by pedestrians. Going to the supermarket is a fun experience. To buy fruit you have to get a glove and you put it in a bag then weigh it and then it prints a little sticker you print to your bag that tells how much it costs. And they have a ton of different types of cheese. Its hard to know what to buy. I usually stick to fres

h mozzarella it is my favorite and can be eaten with everything. I have discovered a couple of good cookies and I am in love with their juice. It reminds me of baby food because it is really mostly just the actual juice of the fruit my favorite is Pear. It is amazing and they have a really good apple banana one too. YUM YUM. For the first 2 weeks we took Italian Language classes, here is what a typical day was like.

9:00-11:00 Class

11:00-11:30 Break

11:30-12:30 Class

12:30-12:40 Break

12:40-1:30 Class

We always looked forward to the breaks. That was what we had everyday, most days we also had class with our Professor from 2:30-3:30 and twice we had language specific classes for 2 hours and we also had cooking classes from 5-8 ish.

The cooking classes are really fun. Dominique requested that I post what we have made in our cooking classes so here are a few things we have made.

We made our own pasta twice, once we made basil pasta so it was green and the other time we made spinach ravioli. We made Bruschetta (your favorite mom!) We made a few different meats, all very good, nothing to extravagant. Oh we made this delicious antipasta (appetizer) it was stuffed tomatoes. I don’t really know how to describe them but that they were heavenly. I will try and recreate them when I get home. The desserts have been so good. We made this meringue and strawberry type thing, a chocolate cake that was sooooo good, and the best has been Strawberry Tiramisu. YUM. We are going to try and make it again. We still have one more cooking class and I am excited to see what we will make.

One weekend a group of us decided to go to Venice. We hopped on a train at 6:30 and 5 hours later we were in Venice. It was amazing. I had heard it was dirty and smelly but I found it enchanting and adventurous. The streets wind in and out of amazing little shops selling any glass thing you could ever want. There were a ton of tourists, million tourists speaking every language imaginable. I spent most of my time on this cute little market on Rialto Bridge, one of the most famous bridges in Venice. I bought some cute glass jewelry and a really cute shirt in a store near by. One thing that is true about Venice is how expensive it is. Everything but glass is outrageously expensive. But it was well worth the day trip.

The market bridge where i shopped my heart out!

This past weekend I was not in the same city for 6 days. It was quite the adventure. Thursday we went to Pisa to see the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa. They are not lying about the Leaning. I was surprised at how much it is leaning. We hiked to the top and it was so trippy because the stairs lean one way and then they lean the other way and they go around the building in a circle so by the time you reach the top you are dizzy and not to sure what direction you are going. We also went in the Duomo and Baptistery, also cool. It has been fun to compare all of the different churches we have been to. A funny story about Pisa, when we got off the train Tommy and I were talking and he asked what I would name my clothing line he was shooting out a bunch of names we decided that it needed to be a cool Italian name one of the ones he mentioned was Dannielle Volpe (Dannielle the fox) and I shot it down but on the way back to the train we saw a store called Daniele Volpi (vopli is plural of volpe) and we were amazed at first I thought he was joking and had saw the sign before but he swears that he made it up off the top of his head. We thought it was pretty funny so we took a picture!

On top of the Tower... leaning...

Pushing over the Leaning Tower

Friday we went to Florence, which was a very exciting town that has a feeling of overflowing culture and wisdom. I don’t really know if that makes any sense how a town can feel like that but it’s the only words I feel are appropriate to describe Florence. We went to the Duomo and saw the famous dome and then we went to the Accademia to see The David by Michelangelo. Every one has seen picture of it but in real life it is at least 10 times better. He (is it weird to personify it like that?) is huge. I think we were told it stands 15 feet tall… huge. And amazing. I think it might be my favorite statue so far. Then of course Cinzia had to show us here favorite gelato place… then we hit the famous market in Florence. They had every thing Leather you could imagine. I just soaked it in because we are going back this week, so I will make any purchases then. Then our group split up for the long weekend.

Naomi, Veronica and I stayed in the area and had our own adventure, because we couldn’t find anywhere to stay in Cinque Terre. Saturday we woke up and decided to go to Lucca, and it was a cute little town. Everyone there rides bikes. While we were exploring the town we came across an old car show in one of the piazzas. It was so cool. A lot different then any car show I have been to before. They even had Motorcycles. We also found a park on the wall that surrounds the city and swung on the swings for awhile. On our way back we decided to stop in Pisa again because we wanted to do some shopping and there were tons of cool stores. I bought some Ray Ban like shades I have been trying to find for some time now. Only 5 euro… we will see how long they last!

Sunday we accompanied a friend who needed moral support because she had to go home to Brazil to get surgery on her eye, where she got an stye and it was not getting better. So we hopped on a bus to Rome then a few hours later on a bus back to siena.

Then Monday was the best day. We went to Cinque Terre. The one place I HAD to see while I was here in Italy. And it was SO worth it. It was like nothing I have ever seen before. SO COOL. Cinque Terre is 5 citys that sit on the coast of north west Italy. They are very Italian towns full of color that are just nussled into the cliffs of the Italian coast. There are trails that connect the 5 cities, so you can hike from one to the other. It was amazing. We started at the bottom town Riomaggiore and hiked our way to all five. We did cheat on one because we wanted to see what the train was like. But we did manage to do the hardest hike from Vernazza to Monterosso. It was beautiful and I think I would have enjoyed it a million times more if I didn’t have to go to the bathroom so bad. Hahah about half way through the hike it hit me and I thought I was going to wet myself any minute. We still had a blast and I took a ton of picture but pictures didn’t quite capture the beauty of these towns. While we were there we had to have something with pesto because that is the region where pesto originates from, so we shared a Pesto Pizza. IT WAS AMAZING. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. That pizza ties with the pizza I had in rome for the best pizza ever. I loved it. The weather was perfect for us to. It was slightly cloudy and rained a little here and there. More of spitting… as Ms. Baer would say. It was perfect for hiking. And we walked on a beach in the last town, the water was so clear. It was beautiful. I know I keep saying that but I loved it. My favorite place for sure. Then Tuesday we were back in Siena. Home sweet Home, at least for a few more weeks.

Today I met with the guy who I am doing my internship with. He is a graphic designer and painter. He is best described as Artsy. He has orange rimmed glasses his studio is stuffed full of art on the walls and cluttered with paper and many other random things. I love it, there seems to be no real organization but really everything has its place. I still have no idea what I will be doing. I really only know when to be there tomorrow and that I will have to take a bus there. That will be an adventure. And He talks so fast and has a really strong Tuscan accent so he is hard to understand. Haha I feel like the first few days will be interesting for sure.

That is a brief update of what I have been up to the last few weeks. I Miss you all so much and I am getting a little homesick. I think I will be ready to come home which is good news because I know I was worried I would never want to leave Italy. I do miss some random food, like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, BBQ’s, any American meat and of course Grandma’s Chinese chicken salad. Yum…. I guess I will just have to eat some gelato to ease the pain. J!!

Ciao! A dopo.

Dannielley