La Dolce Vita

Ciao Tutti!! (hey everyone!)

Gregorio here, writing to you from the REAL Siena in Italy! I am studying abroad here for the semester so be sure to stay tuned to my blog! I arrived here in Siena on Jan 15th. The study abroad program in Siena, Italy, is one of the most authentic and gives students the opportunity to really immerse themselves in Italian culture. I am doing a home-stay (as do all of us) with an Italian family. My family is absolutely fantastic! they are such a typical italian family, its so funny! And its so awesome because my host mom has her own cooking school! so, needless to say, the food has been A-MAZING. I was so nervous that i was going to come back 30 pounds heavier, but the town of Siena is in the hills of Tuscany so there is TONS of walking and lotsssss of hills....so i'm hoping it will balance out all the pasta! This weekend we went to Florence which is like an hour away from Siena. We walked all over, saw the duomo (big cathedral) and went to the Uffizi gallery which has like the elite collection of Italian rennissance art in all of Europe. It was so amazing I absolutely love that city!
Classes have been quite intense. When we arrived we took an Italian language placement exam. There is no requirement that says you have to speak Italian to study here. In fact, most of the kids have never taken Italian before. I actually am pretty proficient in Italian and so they placed me in avanzato (advanced). The first 3 weeks are only Italian class before the semester classes begin. For 5 hours a day my class speaks only in Italian...there are only 5 of us in advanced and its more like discussion than actual class, but its quite intense. After the 3 weeks of italian is up they are taking us on a group excursion to the dolomites which is up further north in Italy in the Apls..very exciting.