9 "oggi faccio pollo fritte perla cena"

"Today I'm making fried chicken for dinner!!" That's what popped into my head this morning in the shower. I will have been here a month this Thursday and it really feels like I've been here for two! I think my craving for fried chicken is my way of missing home!! Things are great here but I do wish I could transport so many people and things from the states here to be with me.

So anyway, I did fry some chicken!! haha And some apples and I was gonna make macaroni and cheese but there was no appropriate cheese at the stores on my street. BUT, I will find some cheese soon.... and that macaroni will be made. My roommates were amazed at my chicken frying abilities.... but I didn't even marinate this chicken overnight this was just a quick fry!! I don't feel that I'm special because I can fry chicken; I feel like the southern (read country) girl that I am when I'm frying chicken!! Anyway here is a picture of my country dinner here in Italy.

home sweet home on a plate!

3 more pics: san gimignano

My second stop on Saturday was the town of San Gimignano. This town was really cute, but not as awesome as Sienna. I could live in Sienna, San Gimignano is definitely just a get-away/vacation type town.

view of the city from my bus window...
san gimignano is up in the hills of tuscany.

climbing up the hill to the center of town.

the perimeter of the city as we were walking up to the center....

the center of San Gimignano!
S. Gimignano is known for these towers,
they represented the wealthiest families of the town.
Once a family lost their money though, their tower was torn down.
at one point there were 70+ towers in this tiny town!
it probably looked like NYC from the tuscan countryside...



here's a video of what it was like walking into the city center!
notice the guy playing the guitar in the background.....

there were tons of street performers in this city, and everything was especially clean,

so the whole town kind of felt like an amusement park!
this was just one of a few harp players we saw....

....puppeteer and musician...

...random guy getting down on the flute in hammer pants!

we climbed up this step of very STEEP steps to a lookout point....

...where u could see what looked like all of tuscany!!
the girls i was with were all scared to sit up here because there was a straight drop about 6 inches behind me.... lol

this was just a statue near another overlook of the countryside...
side note: san gimignano is known for its great gelato,
a fruitcake like pastry called paneforte,
and a great white wine that's kind of sparkling called vernaccia.
we got free samples of each every time we went into a store...
and i bought some of each for only like 20 euro total!!

fresh rosemary was growing all over...
the whole town just smelled like gelato, great italian food and fresh herbs!

by this time the sun was on its way down so it was time to head back to Florence...
it really was a perfect saturday.
this is my friend mckenzie being cool :)
i cannot wait till the next day trip we take!
hope you enjoyed the pictures and i hope your weekend was great too!!

Ciao! ;)

2 i LOVE sienna

Today I had the pleasure of visiting Siena which is about an hour away from Florence and it was amazing!! Whatever you picture in your mind Italy to be, Siena is IT! I don't even know where to start but here are some pictures... I took 200 pictures in 1 day! So it was hard to narrow down...

a monastery up on one of the hills we passed as we traveled from florence to sienna.

apparently, there are only three hermit monks left but there used to be one that lived in each of these 3 story apartments.
when there are no more monks left, this will probably be converted into a university.

part of the fortezza (fortress) that surrounds the middle of sienna.
notice the person standing on the right... this thing was huge!

view of siena.... notice the tower in the middle of the photo,
there is a close up coming up!!

Church of San Domenico
This church was built in the 13th century,
but after the death of Saint Catherine a chapel was added within the church to house her relic:
specifically, her head!!

Chapel of Saint Catherine in San Domenico

See that glowing face in the middle? That's supposedly Saint Catherine's head...

more cathedral...



sienna streets!!

sienna is a very hilly town with narrow streets.
the architecture of the buildings is beautiful!!
very well maintained city, everything looks like it was just cleaned!
and unlike florence, sienna has FRESH AIR....

entering the center of the city,
il campo!!
this is where the legendary horse races have been held for hundreds of years and are still held today. each of the 12 neighborhoods of sienna is represented by an animal,
and each of them get to put a horse in the race each year....

me! + the other 100 million tourists

more il campo


the spectators for the race fill the red brick area u see here.
the crowd is usually around 50,000 people!
the horses race around the perimeter for 3 laps...

cute little baby playing in the fountain!
italian kids are too cute...

this is the chapel built on/around the birthplace of St. Catherine.
her story is incredible.... look her up!
she definitely was one of the first feminist and way before her time!!

this goose represents the goose neighborhood...
it was just on the side of a home next to st. catherine's chapel

chapel bells + and interesting roof?

a gorgeous well....

moving along to the next amazing sight....



the duomo of siena!!
no where near the size of the Florence cathedral, but unbelieveably gorgeous.
unfortunately we didn't have time to go in but I heard its quite beautiful inside as well.
unfortunately the cupola (dome) was covered due to construction or cleaning... but the rest was stunning!!!

also when when walked into the plaza there was this guy playing the organ so the sound of it travel


more cute kiddies :)

These pictures are for my DADDY!!
There was a vintage car race starting up as we were heading to lunch in Il Campo.
I had to fight through the crowd to get these photos!! Hope you like! :)



this is where we ate lunch!
from the outside it looks just like an ordinay trattoria...
but then we went downstairs and its set up like a medieval dining area!


it was very pretty and the food was SO good...
i had pici ( a thick homemade long pasta) with garlic, tomatoes and basil.
it was delish!!

this is my academic director's daughter Tori, she's 7.
(chris is a guy in my program too)
she was too adorable and spent the whole day with us....
at lunch, when everybody else was drinking wine with our food, as they do with every meal in Italy.... she was like, "hey where's mine??" when glasses will be filled!!
that's not strange here in europe but it still was a trip to see a 7 year old drinking wine lol

we saw probably about 4 brides in the few hours we were in Sienna!
this was the best candid photo of this couple taking wedding photos...


This is the Sienna "mascot" of sorts, in the town hall...
Its a she-wolf suckling Romules and Remus from mythology...
I don't remember the whole story behind it....

Anyway, I can't say enough about Sienna... it was so much more than I expected and I didn't even show you guys all that we did in the short 4 hours we were there. I hope to go back before I leave Italy! I also went to San Gimignano today, but I have to put those pictures in another post tomorrow.... it was magical!!! haha


Arrivederci!!