#sienaschool

I. “Amy, why are you bringing a sweater to Italy?”

Back in the US, thatwas the question on everyone’s lips, with the unspoken implication that Siena would be some kind of beach paradise. Never mind that I talked to people who had done the same program and highly recommended I bring warm clothes and rainboots; never mind that I had been reading travel blogs every night to advise my packing; never mind that the people speaking had either only been to Italy for a short period in the summer or else not at all—the idea of my having a warm layering cardigan in case of a chilly day was ludicrous.

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 During my pre-departure packing spree for Siena, every time someone asked me why I needed gloves or suggested I keep my high socks at home, I thought to myself, Soon. Soon you’ll be there and everyone will understand. Both days that Siena was hit with an uncharacteristic snow day I was sure to post photographic evidence online. I am nothing if not non-combative and petty.

  II. One 50-degree day in February, one of my host sisters arrived home shivering. Ha freddo!, she had said, and when I expressed my disbelief—it had been warm no less than an hour before—she offered a hand to me to feel.

 “Oh, wow, that is cold!” I told her, feeling like a liar. It felt like a normal hand, but who was I to tell my host sister that her totally valid opinion about the weather was wrong? I didn’t want to be too American so early in my stay.

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 There was only more to come. When my host family sees me leave the house in less than full winter regalia, their concern that I may catch la febbre is palpable. At home, this is the weather I would start wearing skirts and tights in, but here that is unthinkable. I’ve taken to disguising my outside clothes so they seem warmer than they are—I’ve removed the lining from my jacket, I wear my thinnest scarf, and what look like thick, hardy jeans are actually jeggings.

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 III. On a sunny day when I could finally feel the heat from the sun through the cold of winter, I took off my cardigan inside and wore only a short-sleeved shirt and a scarf. One of my professors tapped my arm. “Are you not cold?” she asked me. I outwardly laughed reassuringly and inwardly raised my eyebrows in bafflement. I was inside. The sun was out. The heating was presumably on in the building. Their cold is my sunny day.

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 This precaution of looking like winter but dressing like spring are necessary for two reasons. First, every native Italian person is going to be dressed like the White Queen of Narnia—there’s going to be a possibly floor-length jacket and full winter coverage, but they’re still going to find a way to last this eternal winter and look stylish as they can doing it. Wearing less than that is like throwing on a big hat that says “I’m not from here!”, which isn’t really what you want even if you actually aren’t from there.

 The other problem is that it invites the same kind of conversation as when an American wears basketball shorts in a Northeastern winter—there’s a certain variety of person, usually a concerned parent, who sees an unbuttoned jacket as an opportunity to tell you to cover up before you catch cold. The first time that happened to me, I stuttered out a few vaguely Italian syllables, acted grateful, and walked very, very quickly. The second time, I covered up before I caught cold, resigned to this confusing cultural rift from both sides that conspired to keep me at temporal extremes.

  IV. Once at dinner, one of my host sisters hummed a little bit of Uptown Funk (Mark Ronson feat. Bruno Mars). “I love that song!”, I told her, so she played the video, and the whole family was suddenly dancing (fully seated) and singing the song I had tried to chain on the radio while driving in the weeks before I left. It was hilarious and fun and just general proof that my host family is the ideal, but I couldn’t help feeling a bit bitter as they sang the lines too hot/hot damn/make a dragon wanna retire, man. They will never understand the oppressive, constant, insulated warmth of an American body feigning Italian temperature, but I in turn will never understand the constant shivering cold of an Italian body living an Italian winter. At least the world will keep on turning, and soon bring me to the perfect balance of an Italian spring.

Wow. What a weekend. These past three days have been so genuinely Italian, I could not have been more fortunate to be at the right place, at the right time. Friday was a wine tasting, production lesson, and tour of the vineyard in Chianti, followed by lunch in a small town; Saturday was a trip to a family-owned bee farm with a stop at a monthly farmer's market, resulting in a luxurious lunch; Sunday was gray, slow, spent--at least that's how I felt in the morning.

Outside was dreary. My aesthetically out-of-place iPhone used its superpowers to inform of rain all day. There's nothing to kill the mood of a parade like a rainy winter day, especially when the floats are made of paper-mâché. Some of the girls had mixed feelings, but Deborah, our steadfast, leading enthusiast was ready to go no matter the conditions. We assembled, slowly, stumbling onto the piazza, just an hour later, in the heat of the Tuscan sun. We met her at the base of the Duomo, at Fontebranda--she was wearing a t-shirt and a smile.

That's how everything turned out. The drive to Foiano through Tuscan countryside was unmatchable. Crossing into Arezzo, long anticipated, signaled our arrival. We parked at an outlet mall under a sign that read 'Motocicli', in between two other silver cars. Once we jumped on the shuttle to the hilltop town, that was it. Carnevale went on in its fashion, full of smile and awe at the marvelous creations still produced by human hands. Foiano della Chiana has been hosting a Carnevale event since 1539, making it the oldest in Italy.

Much like Siena, Foiano is a fortified city. It attempted to defend itself against Firenze, and failed. Of course. It also is home to four contrada type groups called cantieri, there are the Azzurri, Rustici, Bombolo, and Nottambuli, which were initiated not long after World War I.

Famous and valued people to have graced Foiano include Leonardo da Vinci and Giorgio Bush. In pursuit of finding a place to eat (everyone runs to the few open restaurants during lunch time, good luck finding chow if you're busy 'taking it all in'), we asked a few of the folks running security. They very quickly warmed up to us, and one, Luciano, sometimes known as George W. Bush, recounted to us the tale of being mistaken for the 43 president of the US of A by a group from San Francisco overtaken by their wine-tasting. He proceeded to talk politics (Obama has too much sex with his wife, he said), tell of us his daughter and niece (who live in New York and Siena, respectively), offer life advice (Non fumare! Non fumare!), and extend an invitation to his 50th wedding anniversary in New York next February! (Whichever cantiero would put him on a float and arm him with a microphone would be sure to win the parade competition.)

Over the long weekend my friends and I planned a trip to Rome. It was my first time, and as my host mom said “Finally! You are going to Rome!” It seems a little silly to have saved the trip to arguably the most important city in Italy for the last available weekend, but I am so happy with how it worked out.

Rome was chaos. Exciting, fast-paced, overwhelming. My friends and I had to be on top of our traveling game, but all of our previous trips in Italy to Bologna, Venice, Florence, Napoli, and Sorrento prepared us for Rome. By now we have perfected our system of making the most of our time in any given city.

As soon as I stepped off the train I purchase a map. I needed it to navigate to the Airbnb where I was staying for the weekend, and it is also nice to visualize the layout of the city. After checking in at the apartment, we sat down and prioritized what sights we wanted to see. We left our bags at the apartment, which is a simple thing, but it is great to be able to drop your stuff off early in the day. It is much nicer than having to walk around the city with everything you own in your bag (something I have done more than once). Then we were off to experience Rome!

In three and a half days we fit quite a lot in. On Friday evening we explored the city and its shops and then we happened to walk into the Colosseum lit up in the night.

Saturday morning we got up early, and skipped the line at the Vatican Museum because we had made a reservation. We spent the day looking at the Renaissance art we had talked about in our art history classes and saw the Sistine Chapel. On Sunday we rode the metro with crowds of Italians. We joined the masses of people making their way to St. Peter’s Square for the Pope’s blessing. I saw Pope Francis himself. The excitement in the crowd was unreal. I understood a good portion of Pope Francis’s blessing thanks to our intensive italian class. After the conclusion of the speech, we milled about outside the Vatican and went to do some shopping at a market on the street. Later that day I toured the Colosseum, and it was free because we went on the first Sunday of the month. On Monday we made a visit to the Galleria Borghese with our tickets that we reserved online before the trip. The marble statues by Bernini were unbelievable and my favorite part of the gallery. We fast-walked across the city to get to the Pantheon before it closed. I admired the elaborate interior and looked up through the oculus.

It was lovely to be in Rome in December. The weather was still warm in comparison to the winters that I am used to, and the city looked so festive. Christmas lights are strung down the streets, and all the monuments are complimented with beautiful Christmas trees. Around noon we made our way to the Spanish steps. The plan was to get some gelato, sit down, and people-watch for awhile.

However when we arrived in the area we encountered what seemed to be the entire population of Rome crowded in the streets. Unbeknownst to us, Monday was the day of the tree-lighting ceremony and it was only until we asked around did we realize that the Pope was coming. It was such a fun, unexpected thing to be a part of.

The moral of the story is this: traveling in Italy is incredible. Reading up on the place you are visiting, making reservations in advance, and prioritizing the places you want to visit within the city are all important. But equally important for a fantastic trip is being able to slow down, pay attention to the small moments, and above all, enjoy the surprises.

We went abroad to find new things and Siena continues to prove it was the best choice to satisfy the requirement. Not only does Siena offer innumerable unique opportunities of its own, but it also encourages and, in a way requires, a fall break that is inevitably full of further fresh and undiscovered adventures.

For ten days we all went our own ways to explore new parts of Europe. Some friends and I looked under the rocks in Madrid, Seville, and Paris and found things we both expected and were surprises. Amid new languages, foods, and cityscapes we never knew what we were going to find beyond what was marked on our map.

After spending two days in the Prado in Madrid, an afternoon in the Reina Sofia and drinking in/laugh out loud at art from the Etruscans to today’s contemporaries, we were ready for something off the streets main or at least outside the museums. As a result we found paella and fell in love with sangria and spent hours trying to finish it all.

Seville brought us a new pace of travel. Our map had less brightly circled landmarks and so our days revolved around meals and stumbling upon things we didn’t know where there. Our first day we accidentally found the Plaza de Espana and that it was beautiful.

The warm brick complex was enlivened by beautifully colored tiles and all I could think was, why don’t we use these tiles more often in the States? Now, I think all of us have new blueprint plans for our dream houses.

The last leg of our break was in Paris. There we wanted to circle every landmark but then we would’ve been a whirlwind of rushing. We had our priorities and everyone had their first choice of what to see and from there we tried to take it as it came to us. Our walks to the museums were a part of the day’s sights, and so we stopped for our photos and intake of the little things and let the smaller moments wash over us with the same grandeur of the Van Goghs and Monets.

Madrid, Seville, and Paris all in ten days was just what we needed for our fall break. And the short time frame only made it clear that we wouldn’t be able to see everything on this first visit, we’ll just have to go back again.