so much for getting another one up quickly.

museum in Florence

 So for my birthday we went to Florence and to a few museums. The Hum 201 class had a midterm coming up they had to take notes for, but there were a few of us who aren't taking that class, and we just kinda wandered, staying pretty close to them. it was cool hearing the stuff without needing to know it any of it. and it was a cool museum to begin with because it had ancient Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman stuff in it. I liked tuning to what Professor Georgi was saying some of the time, and then not paying as much attention at other times. I got to pose with stuff, and those pictures are on facebook, since

Egyptian stuff in said museum

 other people took those pictures. but here are a few of the pictures I took, both of people and of just some of the things I saw. seeing all the Egyptian stuff almost made me want to learn heiroglyphs as well. almost. After we went through the museum, we were free to leave for home or to wander around Florence by ourselves. we most of us decided to wander around more and we found this awesome open air market that evidently is there every day, but because the first time I went to Florence it was night, we hadn't known about it. I bought something for DJ there, and almost thought

MUMMY!!!!!

 about buying a leather jacket for myself. but I had put my stuff in Natalia's backpack because I didn't bring anything (we were told not to) and then Michelle was carrying it and had wandered off, and we didn't know where she was. Luckily we found her on the bus going back to Siena, or I wouldn't have had a ticket home.... but it all worked out, so no worries. and if I ever really want a leather jacket, the market is open every day, so I can just go back on a free day.
The next day was friday, and we were to begin our weekend LDS History Tour up north with the religion professor, Eric Dursteller, or something

haHA! I didn't have to take notes :)

 like that. we just all called him Eric, because he said we could and that was a lot easier to remember. he had served his mission in Italy a really long time ago, so he knows Italian pretty well, and it was useful having someone more fluent than any of us are around to figure stuff out. We started out by meeting him in Genova (I think that's the Italian spelling) where President Snow first landed when he was a missionary in Italy. he comments on going into a church with one of his companions and noting how beautiful all the decorations are, but there wasn't the spirit of the gospel there at all. He was sad about that,

a candle tree in the cathedral in Genova

but happy that he was there to share the gospel with the people of Italy. if they would listen to what he had to say. It is interesting because, although it is not the case any more, at that time in our church's history,  they didn't think Roman Catholics would convert to Mormonism very easily, so it was difficult to figure out where or how to start in Italy, which was about 80% Roman Catholic, if not a higher percentage. But Snow did his research and had heard of a group of Protestants who had broken off from the church hundreds of years before anyone else did, and they had remained faithful members of their

a robe in the museum in the cathedral of Genova

 own religion even despite all the persecution against them. Snow thought they had many aspects similar to Mormonism, so he felt that those people were the best to go preach the Gospel to. Those people lived in the Pedemonts, or at the foot of the Alps, and often up in the Alps themselves because it was harder to kill them off when they coudln't be found. So after Genova we followed in the footsteps of Snow and went to Torre Pellice, where they dedicated Italy as a country missionaries could go to. For some reason there was a slight miscommunication with where we were going, and how cold it was going to be, so a lot of us didn't have quite enough jackets. but we survived. and it was really cool the next morning to wake up and go up into the Alps a little and see where the Waldenses (the group the missionaries were preaching to) lived and where one of their religious colleges were. they were so persecuted that they weren't aloud to go to school in the schools down in Torre Pellice, so they had to

Genova from a tower's view

 have their own schools to try and teach the common people, and even the priests, anything. not being allowed to go to school in Italy though was probably one of the best things that could have happened for the Waldenses because they had to go out of the country and learned a lot more than they could have if they had learned within Italy.
After we saw all those cool things, we went to Torino because we had wanted to see the Shroud of Torin, but we stayed in a Monestary above the city the night before and it took a long time to get to church and missed our tour. But staying in

walking through the "gut" of Genova

 Monastery was really cool. for one thing it was gorgeous! and then just the idea of staying in such a cool place was really fun too. all of us girls got to stay in one room together. ok, well actually there were 2 rooms because there are 18 of us, and I don't know if they have a room big enough for all of those beds, and some privacy as well. But it was loads of fun. and dinner was fun as well, even though we were all by ourselves. we were being extremely loud, which we probably shouldn't have been: especially since monks are suppose to take vows of silence. but a few girls got lost on floors after dinner when they went exploring, and they said that you can't hear anything in some of the places they found because the walls are made of stone and it's just so big! but, after wandering around after church for an hour or so in Torin was fun. there were so many things going on, but I'm beginning to think there are always things going on, on Sundays. we just normally don't get out much, so we don't notice them. or we

we love fountains

 are traveling and don't get to just spend an afternoon in a city.

Torre Pellice

 I loved the church in Torre Pellice. it was super cute, and probably so cool because it wasn't a "normal" church like we've seen so much in the past few months.

"Swiss Alps"

< this was the "school" we hiked up to see in the Alps. it was just a priest school and it had been restored, but it was really cool. I loved that it was made entirely out of stone, including the roof. but there were very few windows so it was very dark and cold inside

SALAMANDER! in the Alps

 \/ we saw a salamander on the trail! but our guides told us not to touch it because it was yellow. I think he said the blue ones are the ones you can touch? or maybe the red ones are the non-poisonous ones? either way, we had fun watching it waddle by without touching it.

Monastery in Torino

 \/ this is the church the monastery was connected to. I've decided that Italy has much bluer skies than the United States do. or at least they show up better in my pictures.

the color of the sky was amazing!

 as the sun was setting, the color of the sky was even better!

Torre Contrada fountain (part of it)

we went to a dinner with the Tower Contrada a few weeks ago because our Dante School corespondent is part of the Torre Contrada, so he has connections. In Siena there are 17 contradas in different parts of the city and each has: their own fountain; their own church; their own "head of the contrada." There are rivalries among some of the contradas, and they are funny to hear about. Luca was explaining that it is better to have rivals because during the Palio (the famous horse race that has gone on in Late July and early August in Siena) you can cheer even more when your rival loses than if just someone else random wins or loses. and Condradas are almost everything in Siena. Luca says that if he is dealing with someone in his contrada at the post office or other official places, often he gets things faster than other people would. and his nemesis contrada is the Oca (goose) contrada, so he knows his dentist is from the Oca contrada, but he makes sure his dentist doens't know where he's from, so his visits don't hurt more. but he is sad he has to pay anyone from the Oca contrada for anything. it's just such a funny thing to imagine. and he says that he understands how weird it sounds since he moved to Siena when he was 18, but since he was adopted into a contrada, slowly he has come to have the same passion. and some of the girls say their families are super into their contradas. because we live out of the city, we don't deal with the contrada business as much, although I guess Stefania is in the Draco contrada. she's never made a big deal about it.