La Fenice Massa Marittima

... I have to walk across town to get to class now. One good thing that came out of this, however, is that because we were so close to her apartment she decided to invite the entire class over for a tea party after class today. Not sure why or how she came up with this idea, but I thought it was really cute.

This was the first genuine Italian apartment inhabited by genuine Italians that I ...

... was a plate with huge slices of mozzarella and tomato with basil leaves, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with black pepper. A bottle of this olive oil stood on the table the color of kermit the frog. Fresh tuscan bread, ******* the outside and airy white on the inside, sat in a basket before me. Vilmo poured me a full glass of wine as purple as grape juice from an unlabeled bottle. He informed me that this wine was made from several farmers in the ...

... at the hotel, we walked to the bus station, and boarded a bus to Siena, about 1 ½ hours from Florence. Again during this bus ride, we saw incredible Tuscan countryside – rolling hills of patchwork-green farmlands; beautiful old palazzos and country estates; and interesting bushes, shade trees, and an as-yet-identified plant containing plump, orange-looking fruit (but we are pretty sure that they are not actually oranges)!

Siena, a town ...

un autre jour, une autre destination! Aujourd'hui, nous somme parties pour Siene. Arrive a siene, nous avons traverse la ville pour y trouver un bureau d'information touristique. une fois la carte de la vile en main, nous somme aller dinner dans un resto, un peu a l'ecart des sites touristiques. Comme dans tout les restorant italien, il y ...

... life time on this trip already!
Climbed the tower in the main piazza, saw an enormously large pizza and had wild boar sausages for lunch which were a bit gamey but nice.
Went for drinks at Lochness bar and ended up drinking long islands as there wasn't much in the way of wine or beer there.

... we need to be in Morocco by the 18th Dec as Kim promised me I would have surfing on my birthday - yay!!!! Then we have Hayden and Gill joining us for Christmas in Marrakesh - whoo hoo! It was text message city in Scooby this morning as we got another text this time from Gill in London giving us the fantastic news that I had been accepted as a British citizen. I had lodged my papers before we left London but did not expect to hear so soon as processing times can be up to 6 months!

... hot soak was for our still achey muscles the rotten egg smell was hard for Kim to bear. She was able to block her nose and only breathe through her mouth so she did not gag - poor thing. A new item appeared on the menu tonight - delicious Tuscan pork and chicken sausages (the best ever!) with cous cous ala Gill, all washed down with a local sparkling Rose - yum!!!!! We thought we would have leftovers but no they were so good we gobbled up all 10!

... I get along really well with all of the girls and my actual roommate coincidentally enough goes to Davis as well. So all in all I am very satisfied with my living situation.

A little bit about school, I have Italian language class Monday through Thursday from 9 am to 12:30 with like a 20 minute break (during which everyone usually goes to a bar to drink coffee and eat pastries). As a side note, I LOVE Italian bars. I think it's one of the things that I will miss the most ...

... shop in town. At 1:30 it was closed so we continue into town to check out some shops and a few of the sights around town.

On the way we found the piazza Campo and the tower there. We also saw a few churches. We stumbled upon a photo shop that had a replacement battery for my camera. After additional exploration we made it back to the bike shop. We went inside to find an old shop with not allot of merchandise. We were looking for a water bottle for Kathie and a souvenir ...

... the Colosseum before it got too hot. We got out about 10:00 am. Fortunately on the way out we found out that we needed cash for the apartment, so in addition to the Colosseum we needed to find a bank to get euros. We walked to the Colosseum. There are hustlers who try to get you to take an English speaking tour by saying that there is an hour line to get in and that they by-pass the line. In addition, you get a 45-minute tour. We decided to pass on this and just get tickets ourselves ...