we spent a week in

tuscany.

i love it! beautiful.

first we stopped at a resort

you can get a villa for $4500 a night

no big deal

the campus is 5 times the size of central park

the resort also has a winery from their own vineyards

the wine is aged in these barrels for 2-3 years

(apparently you can taste the wood from the barrel...i'm definitely no connoisseur)

ashley and me in the club members' wine storage room

dear all my nat-geo fans, i'm a wanna be

then we went to the town of montelcino

it's famous for its wine called "brunello di montalcino"

naturally i got a glass of wine to drink with my pb&j that i had packed for lunch

epic

dear reb, remember when you ate jelly sandwiches because you kept forgetting to buy pb?

next we headed to sienna...

wine tasting

1 white, 2 reds

i liked them all

the chigi palace in sienna

the latin above the well reads "reach for the stars"

or some equivalent

duomo of sienna

black & white marble stripes

dear melissa, i : ceilings  ::  you : flowers.

we climbed a million tiny stairs

to see...

a birds-eye view of sienna!

it reminds me of pinocchio (which by the way was set in italy)

the clock struck noon when we were up there

& the bells went wild

next we headed to florence

here is the duomo of florence & giotto's tower on the right

"duomo" just means italian cathedral

that's why there are so many of them

orsanmichele

a church that used to be a grain market

there are 14 niches with patron saint statues in each

i'm an expert on this place. ask me anything.

the "favid" -kaitlin     (the fake david)

the real one is inside the accademia staying dry
good move dave
if david is that big, how big would goliath be?

this little boy was sketching next to all the artists
i almost stole him

we waited in line to see the duomo
and it started pouring down rain all of a sudden

here is the duomo from the inside
well, you really can't see much
whoops

then we saw a shoe museum

for the fashion girls

a lot of shoes in glass cases

then to the leather school

florence is the leather capital of the world
maybe

geppetto working on his ostrich leather purse

blogger is being weird, so i'll update again soon!

ciao ciao

mr. miles

won the mayor election.

that's right, the new mayor of ariccia looks just like my middle school principal

i borrowed some pictures for this post from jenny and katherine w.
thanks, i'm sure y'all won't mind

we brought cianfanelli a bottle of wine as a congratulatory gift
the tag said, "war eagle"

 maurizio (one of our teachers) bought us all campaign t-shirts!
they say, "i love ariccia" & have the ariccia cityscape in green

on friday night we had a party at the palace

we invited all our new friends from ariccia

dear kak and kel, i tried to be like y'all and cook for the party

sour cream doesn't exist here

so we used yogurt...it turned out ok!

after a half hour of trying to communicate, we broke out the phrase book

it was pretty fun

an italian magician was there

this guy really had the sweets for amy. she was so amused.

dear betsy, i was reminded of el dorado

saturday we went into rome for the day

we got on the wrong metro

but it was a good day!

and at the end of the day...believe it or not...

we ate at mcdonalds. at the train station. by eager choice.

burgers, fries, and ice in our cokes never tasted so good

this is my best friend rebekah playing the guitar

praise the lord for skype

praise the lord for italy, too

he is so good

ciao a tutti 

"allora"

that's the word of all words in italian
they say it ALL the time
it's basically a transition word
but we've caught on now

on tuesday we went to deruta and assisi

we went to a ceramics factory in deruta
it was actually really cool

working at the wheel
this is the most mechanical that the here process gets

they export to stores in america
you may have heard of them...
williams sanoma, saks, neiman marcus

here's an example:
http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/paysage-dinnerware/?pkey=ctblsrvcol

next we headed over to assisi

driving through italy is a treat
miles & miles of beautiful countryside

the main attraction: church of saint francis

dear zac, i saw a lot of slingshots for sale in assisi! it reminded me of you as a 7 year old killing bees with lima beans. and now you're driving a truck. where has the time gone?

meghan and me outside the church

peek & her redhead friend
actually this one was more of an orangehead
war eagle

we got an audio tour
check out our sweet blue one eared headphones

gotta love that rose window out front
no pictures were allowed inside
shoot

http://jssitaly.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/ssf-uccelli-l.jpg

here's st. francis "preaching to the birds"
giotto painted this on the back wall of the church. he's known as "the father of the renaissance"

our awesome, american tour guide
he's in the 3rd order society of st. francis

we usually pack our lunch for field trips
much cheaper than tourist food
we have plenty of time to taste italy elsewhere!

next we went to "civita di bagnoregio"
it used to be surrounded by rivers
so now it looks like this
dad, i think the sides look like the rock in the grand canyon. thanks for that family vacay

this is what surrounds the city now

a view from inside the city
sara, for some reason it reminds of montana
i've never even been there

katherine, aly, ashley, me, kaitlin, jenny, margaret anne

hipsta 10, kaitlin

just a random outbreak of tug of war
notice jenny, kaitlin, & peek joined in

next we went to orvieto

this is a new one
purple hair
to match the shirt

here is the well
you're looking up from inside the well

and here is looking down
from the same point
it got pretty cold down there

we saw one of the few gothic churches in italy
the stripes are made from light and dark marble

some side notes:

the hardest part about learning italian is
"ch" is pronounced like a "k"
and "ci" is pronounced like a "ch"
whyyyyyyyy

that's ok though, italians really struggle with the "th"in english
usually they just don't say that part at all
it doesn't exist in their language

that's all for now!
ciao ciao!