Missed the Bus, and My Last Day of Class

I swear I set my alarm last night. Of course, when I woke up this morning, two minutes before the bus was suppose to leave for Siena, the alarm on my phone showed no sign of ever being turned on. Honestly, I am pretty sad to miss the last day of class because today we going to play Taboo in Italian. I think it would have been really fun, but I guess I really needed the sleep. I could take a later bus into the city and get to class just before 10am, but by that time, Taboo would almost be over with. Honestly, I think I really needed the sleep. These past three days have been some of the most stressful since I have been in Italy, and I can safely say I was completely exhausted. I even asked Mom yesterday if we could go to Vegas or Reno when I come home, and just live in the spa for a weekend. Not that I do not, in some ways, love the simple Italian life, but I miss the luxury a lot. Still, I guess the Tuscan life has sunk in little by little. I remember walking through Siena to the bus the other day, when I decided that I wanted to have a vegetable garden and started thinking about where I might be able to put one at the new house. This coupled along with want to learn how to play the piano and the cello, learn German, Russian, and French. Well, I guess Italy has got me feeling kind of arty. Good thing most of these goals are obtainable. Plus, I have already started learning French.

All in all, I think the Italian class was very useful. I learned a whole lot of new vocabulary, and was able to review some of the everyday grammar I had forgotten. The biggest downside to the whole experience was that it sucked away all my free time, and was quite honestly, exhausting. Every morning I would wake up at 6am, be in Siena by 7:50am, and walk around the town aimlessly for one hour, until class started at 9am. Then we would have class until 12:15, with a 15 minute break somewhere around 10:30am. I would then have 45 minutes to either rush to the grocery or run some errand and then huff back to the bus stop just outside of the old city walls. The bus ride was a good 40 minutes, and so I would not get home until close to 2pm. I would rush upstairs, make lunch, talk to mom, get ready for the next day, clean my dishes, and then head over to the big house where I would hang laundry, and make/clean up dinner, then rush back to the apartment so I could be in bed at 9pm and start the whole process over again. By the end of the two weeks I think I was just too tired. It was not the class but the constant running that wore me down. Still, I am glad I had the time to travel Siena because now I really know the city center well. I know where to find bedding, office supply stuff, kitchen supply stuff, everything, just by walking in the mornings. It was not always pleasant, and keep in mind none of these stores were ever open (opening generally starts around 9 or 9:30am for the Italians). Some mornings the wind would be so cold and so strong, that I would come home and my whole face would be red and wind burned. Still, I feel much more comfortable with Siena now, so I think it was a good experience all in all.

One thing I recommend to anyone planning to live abroad is to walk as often as possible in the city you either live in or close to. I never want to seem like too much of a tourist, and I always thought that if I turned around in the middle of a street, I would surely be spotted. So, my plan of action has always been this (and it has worked pretty well so far) never turn around. Even if you find yourself going into what looks like a residential area, just keep walking and keep your bearings. You will eventually either make it back to the tourist area you were in, or you will end up somewhere you recognize and can start you trek all over again. In my opinion, this is the best way to explore because you always end up finding some shop you would have never known existed. Like how I found a shop that sold little egg timers one day in Siena and I thought, well that would be nice to have, and now I know where to get it. I mean, if you are just a tourist, then I guess this is not really quite as important, but if you are going to be a resident somewhere, even for just three months, I have found that walking without turning around, is the best way to discover where the things you want are sold. Of course, you might know someone who knows the city better than you, and can give you advice on where to find what you are looking for. But, if you are like me, and living with people who don't really know much about their local big city, then it is just you and your feet.

It is suppose to start raining again tomorrow, and is not forecasted to stop until next Friday. So, I guess this just about kills my plans to start running in the mornings. Still, I do have a backup plan. Since I did finally find a workout/yoga mat in Siena, I started looking for free yoga classes via YouTube. Most of the "classes" offered were about five minutes long. Basically the instructors gave you all the poses and then said it should take you so and so many minutes to go through each of the poses. Well, I just do not work very well that way. I kept looking for a full length class, and then I finally found one. They were listed by the user: yogayak.com. So, I decided to check out the website. What I really like is that the classes are just posted on the site, and I think they do keep them updated, but you can do them at your own pace, and on your own schedule. Then I saw the price. 15 dollars for one month, 30 dollars for three, and 100 for a whole year (be careful, the subscription automatically renews), and I think I am just going to have to join for a three month period. That will cover me until it is about time to go home, and this way, I will have a way to get in a bit of exercise even when it is raining. I would seriously check this site out if you are interested in doing yoga but do not have the time to make it to a gym or do not want to go to the gym, this might just be the site you are looking for. You know, I will never cease to be amazed by what you can find on the internet when you just start looking. I found a French teacher; I found full length yoga lessons... who knows what I will find next!

I guess I should take a minute to go over some of the good things, since this blog seems to be swinging to the negative. First of all, a cold front blew in at the first of the week, and it got COLD yet again. So, on the first day the front blew in (at 30mph...no joke), coated the interior edges of my big window with what they call "parafreddo" (basically this sticky on one side, foamy stuff which fills any gaps between your wall and window. Then I realized that there was a serious gap in my kitchen window keeping everything super cold still in the apartment, I had no idea what to do since I could not open the window and the gap was too big to caulk. Then Mom suggested tin foil, and it has worked beautifully. I have not finished the whole window because I want to take down the back curtains first since I think there is a little family of spiders living behind there. Still, the apartment has been much much warmer. The only thing I want now is a throw because I do still get cold sometimes when I am just sitting around. I guess I will look for that one later. I am not planning on going into Siena next week since it is suppose to be raining, but I guess I might, who knows?
Besides the apartment situation, I must say this about Pam and Sam, they do at least always say thank you every evening when I leave to go back to the apartment. Even if I just folded clothes that day, they always say thank you, and so I must give them that. Pam might be one of those rude people, who just say whatever they are thinking, but she does at least say thank you.

So, here is what you missed that spurred my bad past couple of days. I made dinner on Tuesday night. It was a swim night (Tuesdays and Thursdays) for the girls, and so Pam asked me to get dinner ready. I had no problem with that, and decided to make lentil soup. Because there is no chicken broth here, I have to use one cube of veggie bouillon and one cube of mushroom bouillon. I have had problems with salt in this soup the past few times I made it, so this time I made the soup with no salt at all. I was really happy with how it turned out. It was just salty enough and quite mellow compared to the other lentil soups I had made. So, everyone gets home from swimming. Sam is complaining, or talking, about something when Pam interrupts him, looks over and me and says "Casey, this soup is just too salty". I was really floored, fired and brimstone did not start shooting from my eyes until I had thought about it some more, but when she first confronted me, I was just stunned, one, that someone would even say such a thing to a person who made their dinner, and two, because I had put no salt in the dang soup. I asked Sam if he thought the soup was salty and he said that he thought it was a little and that the family generally errs on the side of bland. All I could say was "okay". Pam started trying to tell me all the ways she thought I could "fix" the soup, but to be quite honest, I would never take cooking advice from her because I think her food sucks. I just kept getting madder and madder about it all, plus that had not yet set up the wifi in the apartment, and I was really mad about that (Now, Sam has just bought a 50 ft Ethernet cable and I am finally connect in my apartment, Yay!). I was so mad, I thought about slapping her with a raw chicken breast and asking her if that was bland enough for her.

Now I know what it is like to cook for a picky eater. In this since, the girls have much better manners than their parents. Whenever it is just me and them, if they do not like something in the food I make, they at least just pick around it and never say "I don't like this". Well, I guess from now on, I will just never salt or pepper their food. Pam likes to eat food with no seasoning, and so I will just salt and pepper my own. And, of course, I will probably not be making the lentil soup again. I guess my feelings are still a little hurt, but I will just know that when it is my night to cook, I will just make something special for myself.