Ciao Da Italia: If you're going to San [Vincenzo] be sure to wear some flowers in your hair

Is it weird that San Francisco was stuck in my head the entire time I was in San Vincenzo? Unfortunately I did not wear flowers in my hair, but oh well!

Friday June 5
Field trip to Siena! We had to meet at the convent at 8 in the morning to drive a little north to Siena. Along the way we stopped at this road side stop thing that is all over Italy. I bought a doughnut and a red bull. 1: the red bull had a lid on it and I thought that was just the coolest thing in the world, 2: when I went to buy it the cashier asked for my age, I said 19, and then she said okay, then I asked if there was a minimum age to drink red bull in Italy, and she said you have to be 16 to drink it. THAT MEANS SHE THOUGHT I WAS 16.... ridiculous. Just kidding I am well aware I look too young, remember when the guy at the airport thought I was 11 last year.... yeah good times....

Eventually we arrived in Siena and met our tour guide who walked us around the pretty and VERY hilly city.
We were first greeted by this beautiful view of the skyline of Siena (I don't know if you can really call it a skyline, but I am anyway), so obviously everyone had to take pictures of that.

Then we went to a St Dominic Basilica... you may know of this place.... but if you don't this is where Catherine the Greats head and one of her fingers reside.... it was soooooo creepy. We weren't supposed to take pictures in the church and I wasn't feeling rebellious, so you all can just google it.

Then we did a walking tour all around the city which meant walking up and up and up hills.... and rarely any down hills. We learned about the families of Siena, and their rivalries (it's rumored that Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet was inspired by a novel about the families in Siena... you know the Capulets and the Montagues and how they hated each other, that sort of thing). I thought it was so interesting. I kind of wish I could be apart of it. When you are born you are given a scarf with the family's crest on it and you keep it for the rest of your life. And every year they have horse races in the Piazza del Campo (like the main square) and it's a real big deal!
If we are being completely honest I don't remember most of the things the tour guide said (it was really hot and I was hungry) so I am not really sure what all these pictures are of, but this is what I saw!

I do know that these heads were at the top of the bank, I found them to be very creepy

I just liked this cause of the shadow

This is one of the family's flags

Another beautiful view from the city

We then had a break and we got to go eat lunch and explore for 2 hours. My roommates and I had our first experience with a bad restaurant collectively. We walked down a road and could not find anything good. We then found this place that had a good meal deal.... well they were out of half the meals listed on the menu.... want to know why? They served little frozen food packages. They only had like two things and they came out and showed them to us in the frozen packaging, and then threw them in the microwave for a couple minutes... it was awful. We made up for such a bad meal by getting some DELICIOUS gelato. I went with raspberry and mango!

We also did some souvenir shopping, and took some photos in the Piazza del Campo where the big horse races happen

 And we met some "nuns"

But they're not real nuns, they were there for a birthday party... I probably didn't even fool ya...

After the break we went and toured the cathedral and the cathedral museum. It reminded me very much of the one in Orvieto with all the stripes, but it was still very beautiful. They had a library in the cathedral with GINORMOUS books, I thought it was totally awesome even though I had no idea what they were saying. They looked like one of those books that open at the beginning of a disney movie, yknow what I mean?

We could have had the opportunity to climb to the top of that unfinished building there, but the line was too long so we skipped it and went back to the buses to go back to Orvieto... but wait.... I didn't go home! Me and the roomies hopped on a bus and then hopped on a train to go to San Vincenzo to have a beach weekend!

We had a lay over in this tiny little town that I can't remember the name of. The layover wasn't supposed to be very long, maybe like 40 minutes, but our train came 45 minutes late! So we were in the middle of nowhere in this tiny town, chilling on a platform with people who can't speak english, freaking out thinking we would have to stay here overnight or something. The good news is that the train did eventually come and we made it to San Vincenzo at 10:30 pm. The tricky part was then to find where our AirBnB was from the train station. The homeowner gave us directions but they were not very clear, so we kind of just wandered then this couple with their baby found us and asked if we were staying in the beach house with Barbara, and we said yes and they showed us the way. We had to walk up the most ginormous hill in order to get there (we walked the hill probably 4 times and it was death each time).
Then we found Barbara who led us into our room. Since San Vincenzo is right next to the sea it is so dang humid there, and the air conditioning wasn't on in our room, so I thought I was going to die. Luckily, we got the AC to work... but then it started leaking on my bed... so that was fun. I just had to move my bed and set some towels on the floor where it was leaking. The other fun part was that the wifi for the beach house doesn't work in our room, so we had to go to the other side of the house, in the garden (which is in front of these old peoples room that they were renting out) and sit there getting eaten alive by mosquitos and melting from the heat in order to use wifi. We had to be real quiet too because the old people were not very nice and would shoo us away. OH AND the inside doors of our room didn't lock, but luckily there were screen doors on the outside of the inside doors that did lock, so we were safely inside. Besides all those things, the place was really cute, and really close to the beach!

Saturday June 6
This was our beach day! We went to the beach in the late morning and spent a few hours soaking up the sun, swimming in the Tyrrhenian sea, even did a little canoeing! It was awesome and totally relaxing. Not that I need a break from Orvieto and the slow moving life, but it was definitely a nice little vacation! I definitely got sunburnt... but not toooo awful, I'm hoping it will become a tan real soon.

These fake Louis's that I'm wearing, I bargained for on the beach, I was pretty proud of myself. 15 dollars for fake sunglasses? Not gonna happen...

After we felt like we were sweating a little too much, we decided we need some lunch! We went to this restaurant near the beach and decided that fruity cocktails (or mocktails for me) were a necessity.

We also got food, I went with some nachos and white cheese sauce that tasted like queso. yum yum

After lunch we climbed up the mountain to take showers and to communicate with the real world while getting eaten alive by mosquitos. Brandi took a fat nap, and this is how we had to wake her up

Once she woke up we went to find a place to eat dinner. We walked for awhile then found a restaurant that was right up next to the beach. We were wearing our yoga pants and shorts, like totally scrubbing, and everyone else there was wearing fancy clothes and dresses and what not... we were way too underdressed. And when we walked in they were like: reservation? hahaha yeah we definitely did not make a reservation, but they let us eat anyway. Brandi and I  also ordered off the baby menu so we could save money and some room in our stomachs for gelato. We were keeping it real classy.
Unlike us, the view was magnificent.

 This is how it looked through my sunglasses, I thought it looked much cooler....

It was a date night for me and Danielle, Brnadi third wheeled. Very romantic.

Afterwards we went hunting for a gelato place and found the best gelato flavor in the world (yes it's even better than the mango) *drum roll* GREEN APPLE. I know that may be surprising, but green apples are seriously the shiz here, you have no idea.

Sunday June 7
We slept in a little bit, packed up our things to walk down down the mountain one last time (and to never walk back up again) and then headed towards the beach for some breakfast and take two of that delicious gelato.

Then we went to the beach so I could fill up a glass bottle with sand for a souvenir for a couple people at home (by the way, hot sand + glass bottle do not go well for your hands and feet, just saying). We also, of course, had to take more pictures.

Collecting the burning hot sand while trying to stand in the tiny shaded spot

Always reppin' U love A, as Avery would say

Afterwards we hung out a little bit and then caught our train to go back home to Orvieto. We had one layover in Florence where we experienced a self cleaning bathroom (which we had to pay to use, I think that's one thing Italy does not do right). You put in 50 cents, then the door opens, you do your business, press a button for toilet paper (ten sheets max), wash your hands and then press a button to leave. Then the door closes and the bathroom showers and flushes itself.... it was very strange. Our train was stuck on the tracks right before the platform so we left twenty minutes later than we were scheduled to, but luckily we made it back to Orvieto in time to catch the cable car.

When we got home, I made spaghetti (my first official cooked meal here in Italy, I will accept applause). I showered the most glorious shower and then went to sleep!

Monday June 8
Happy birthday Rory!!!

I was super excited for today because someone pretty cool was coming to Orvieto!

IT'S CAROLINE!!! (this is just the photo I took just now, she's much more exciting I promise). She's been traveling all over Europe for the past few weeks, can't get much cooler than that.
I met her at the cable car station, dropped off her stuff at my house and then introduced her to the little town of Orvieto that has become my home! I also needed to take some pictures for my photo assignments, so that was convenient. Along the way, we found my roommates, went to the grocery store (I found pancake mix), came home and edited photos for class, and then went to class. I set Caroline free to wander around the little town while I was in class, it's pretty hard to get lost here.
After class, I met back up with Caroline, we went and got some hot paninis at a cafe.
It's pretty fantastic having her here, she even gets to come on the Tivoli field trip with me on Wednesday, it's going to be quite the party!