Genetori di Italia?

I hardly got any sleep last night. It took me until 3 am to get all my pictures loaded into the computer and then I tossed and turned all night, maybe the room was too hot or the shower was too cold, I'm not sure.

The interior of il Duomo in Castiglion Fiorentino

This morning we got up and went to see il Duomo di Castiglion Fiorentino. It was really nice outside, and its kind of cool that there is this humongous church right next to us here at the center. The major drawback was that we had to go inside the church, which was impressive but was FREEZING cold. The holy water was frozen, just to give you an idea of the temperature.

The view of Castiglion Fiorentino from the top of the hill

After this we went up to the old piazza, which is now sort of a park at the very top of the hill Castiglion Fiorentino is situated on.

Some of the ancient books in the library

Beside this there is a big library which we went to and saw some old Gregorian Hymnals, which were hand written on sheep skins!

Our class listening to Paolo explain the Gregorian hymnals

Lunch was amazing, some kind of fish that was probably the best meat we've had since the chicken drumsticks on the first night. After lunch we went to a class about italian culture, and then we went to Studio.

For studio we already have a project due (Friday). Its called the OP/IUS - or Open Pavillion for the Important University of Siena. We're going to be designing a portable structure that can function as a classroom, a stage/pavillion, and has to be able to be set up in a day on any terrain (ie massive hills in Italy).

After that we're going to do a project analysing some parts of the city, then we will design a master plan for the city and the nearby castle, and our last project will be actually building a model which demonstrates our city plan.

I'm pretty psyched about the city plan project, and I've already got the first project sketched up and ready to start polishing the design.

Coolness for me we're going to FIRENZE (Florence per vostro negli Stati Uniti) on Wednesday.

In order to have breakfast at the center one has to take your own coffee mug. Today I went to go buy one. I walked into this shop and was asking the man for just a single cup with low price. He said he couldn't sell it to me, but took me across the street to a different tableware store. When we walked in I asked the lady the same stuff, and she asked me if I wanted a plate or not, and then I said no plate. She had some big mugs for 3 euro, and I got one that was blue and yellow (go Stony Point! haha never thought I'd say that again). While I was paying the man asked me if I was a student at the Santa Chiara Center, and where I was from. I told him I was from Texas. He and the other storekeeper told me my Italian was very good and asked if my parents were from Italy! I said, no, no... many many yesterdays past my family was from England, but my family is from Texas. I couldn't think of the word for ancestors.... but I think I got the idea across. Regardless I thought it was pretty sweet that the people there assumed I had an Italian family!!

I've met one of the girls here at the center who actually does have an Italian family. Her name is Jenniffer, and she's been taking a lot of Italian classes at A&M. So far she and I are the only two people who can speak Italian pretty well, and I've been really enjoying getting a chance to talk to people in town and become more fluent.

Tonight was Sydney's 20th Birthday, and to celebrate we had cake for desert at the center and the whole group of 100 students sang happy birthday in Italian. Apparently this is a tradition for all birthdays here, so we can expect the same for mine in April.

This evening we went to Pub Rigore to celebrate Sydney's birthday, and a pretty big group of people came with us. It was a really nice place with a great atmosphere, I like it a lot better than the Velvet Underground. We all sat in the back room and talked for a while, and they had the Houston Rocket's basketball game on which was a lot of fun and we all enjoyed watching that and getting to see something familiar to us for a change.

Tomorrow we are back to the grind with a whole bunch of classes and stuff, but it should be another fun exciting day. Now that I've finally gotten to add some pictures I'd really like to continue adding more, but I will only be able to insert pictures every couple days as I get access to a laptop. Hopefully Chris will let me use his again.

In the mean time I may run to Arezzo again tomorrow, then Firenze on Wednesday, then we're going to Genoa (home of Christopher Columbus!) to see an art and architecture exposition on Saturday, and we have a major festival at one of the nearby hilltowns on Sunday. With any luck I should be able to add pictures off all of this by early next week, and I'll go ahead and keep putting the stories up shortly after they happen so I can remember all the details.

By the way, one last minor ammendment... I'm going to be changing the timezone on all these posts pretty soon I think, either with this one or the next one. I think it would be good for you all to be able to see what time it was HERE when I had a chance to update stuff... Maybe I'll leave it central US time, I haven't decided yet.

Ciao!