My Journey to Italia

Saturday: Out and About

September 10, 2005

The last two days I haven't done too much. Just a lot, a lot of walking. A group of us went out yesterday afternoon with the intention of reaching the outskirts of town but got separated and sidetracked many times so that never happened. We did go to the Basilica of San Domenica, the big Church where they have St. Catherine's (the patron saint of Siena) head and finger on display (kinda strange I know.) It's a beautiful place, full of light and beautiful artwork. The candles that you could buy and light for the Virgin, Jesus, etc. were around like last time I was in Italy. I gave a little money for St. Catherine. I keep thinking a lot about what I learned in Humanities Core and with Chiampi and the Divine Comedy this summer. I think it makes me appreciate the Church's so much more. I think I'll probably go there a lot.



After that I returned home for dinner! (I look forward to dinner way too much for me own good!) Last night as a whole was pretty good though. After I talked to Mom on
phone I went in the living room and hung around a little until we had dinner. Then I went back to the city center. I was trying to find people I knew but couldn't for an hour or so. I just wandered around the streets looking at things and sat in the Campo
for a long time. Then I happened upon this group of girls I sort of knew who were trying to find a bar. After an hour of looking for the bar we finally realized that it was closed. They went up to drink in their apartment (oh fun, I'm surprised how many people are here mainly to drink and party) while I left and ran into a different group of UC students. I walked partway back to my house with two other home stay girls. They were really nice and more my style, not into drinking and partying and are having a lot of the same thoughts about the home stay that I am. So that was really nice. (They're from UCLA too, go figure.)

This morning I wandered around a lot, went down a few dead end streets... I pretty much had an idea of what I was doing though and eventually made my way into the city. I went back to the Basilica, I really liked it yesterday, and just sat staring at the stain glass windows thinking. I've been hanging out with people I randomly met since then.

As Mom suggested, I should hang around the kitchen some more. Everything Laura makes
is so good I wish I could always eat like that (try squash with olive oil, I'm not sure what else she did to it but that at least made it a lot better tasting!) And I want to go to the grocery store when they go, I think I’ll ask about it tonight. I slept really well last night though; I think I'm so tired every night that I can sleep even with the loud noise from outside on the street. That's good I guess! I was ok last night actually, I was really glad to have been able to talk to Mom and Dad earlier. It made me happy for the rest of the night. I get a little sad in the late night and early morning but I'm ok.

posted by Madeline Faye @ 1:44 PM