the irony of Italy

As of today I have been to Florence a total of 5 times, 4 with our group and once on my own. the last time I went (so not today, but the last time I went with our group) we got to go up into the dome of the main church. the dome that Brunellesci planned and over saw the architecture of. it's really a brilliant dome because it is soooo high from the ground, and there were all sorts of problems he had to figure out how to deal with. it's a treat to make it all the way up to the top, but there are so many stairs we have to take. half way up we stopped to rest and to talk about what we were going to see. on the walls where we stopped, there was definitely a lot of graffiti. my favorite part was sign telling people not to write on the wall.... and all the writing

I can't get enough of the stained glass!

that was right there defying the sign. it was also really cool once we got back into the church and were looking up at the dome where we were heading to see the giant stain glassed windows that were up there. it is so much more impressive to see them close up than it was to see them from the ground. you can see much more detail, and realize how big they are! each of those panes is probably taller than I am...
That weekend in Florence was an interesting one, on many different accounts, besides just that we got to go up in the dome and see Florence. that was the weekend of what we would call Stake Conference

View from the Dome in Florence

 if there was a stake our branch was in. however, since it's not in a stake, I don't remember what they called it. we decided that since we were going to be there saturday and sunday, we could just stay in a hostel overnight in Florence and save the hassle of waking up extremely early to catch a bus to get us to church on time. one of the girls, Brittany, had found a nice looking hostel that we could all stay in, and we had even found a church that was performing the songs from the opera Marriage of Figaro, since so many of us wanted to go see an opera, so we had something to do that night. going to the opera was fun, and the man in charge of explaining what they were going to be singing about was great. the hostel we stayed at, however, was not. the hostel we stayed in was not the same hostel as the one Brittany found, because that one had filled up and had no room for all of us. therefore, Professor Stanford found another suitable hostel for all of us, but the description of it was a little lacking. we were told that either we were going to be spending the night in tents or in cabins, or in some combination of the two. we didn't know what to prepare for, and therefore I think Professor Stanford was the only one who was truly comfortable that night. the rest of us huddled in our tents with wooden floors, pushing our beds together so we could snuggle to keep warm all night. to say the least, we were not as thrilled with the whole adventure as we could have been. and the next week many people complained of becoming sick, perhaps due to their impromptu camping adventure. but we've gotten over those sicknesses just in time for the cool weather to hit Tuscany.

Spiderwebs in Assis

 we went to Assisi a few fridays ago to see the church dedicated to St Francis of Assisi. it was a cooler morning than most of us were expecting, and there was a bit of fog in Siena. This isn't unusual and as soon as the sun begins to come out, normally it is burned away within the hour. that day things didn't go how we expected them to though. we got on the bus while it was foggy, and it stayed foggy the entire drive to Assisi. when we got out of the bus it was still really foggy, and because of the moisture in the air and just the general look of things, we definitely all felt cooler than perhaps it was. the fog gave a mystical, romantic feel to the whole adventure, and made for some great pictures, because the sun wasn't shining too brightly. my favorite is definitely the spider webs I got with all the water on them.

St Clare's church!

 there were many spider webs in Assisi, and thus many opportunities to take pictures of them.
it was weird finding the churches of Assisi in all the fog because the buildings would loom suddenly out of the mist as you walked towards them. I didn't know this before hand, but there is a church dedicated to Santa Chiara (or Saint Clare) in Assisi as well as a church for St Francis. it was cool to see a church dedicated to me! and to learn about my "patron saint."

I've started wearing my boots. I LOVE THEM!!!

castle props are awesome

the fog didn't disappear until after lunch. it was weird coming out of the restaurant we went to lunch in and being able to see the entire road! and all the drop off views that were around us. for the afternoon we went to castle in Assisi and scampered about there for a while. the views were gorgeous, as were the props they had in the place.

once the fog disappeared, the landscape was beautiful

I really enjoyed seeing the castle. I don't know why I didn't take a picture of the coolest part, but along part of the wall there is a passageway that you can walk through to get to the other tower. it's the coolest thing there, although 

the "tunnel" passageway was under here

 everything was cool, and I'm surprised I didn't get a picture of it. oh well, that's life sometimes.
while we were walking back towards the buses, we saw some monks walking in the opposite direction. it shouldn't have been a surprise to me since we had 2 churches dedicated to the Fransiscan order in town, but for some reason, any time I see monks I find them fascinating! so I had to get a picture, although it isn't a very good one.

monks walking towards us

the chocolate factory was called Perugina

 the next day after Assisi was to be a free day, and a few of the girls had heard of a chocolate factory in Perugia that gave tours (and all the free samples you could eat) so instead of going all the way back to Siena and then the next day figuring out how to get to Perugia (which is really close to Assisi) we decided to split off from the few going back to Siena and stay the night in Perugia. it was a great hostel, and the hosts were angels for putting up with us! most people had forgotten their passports, and yet they didn't complain that we were horrible people for not having our passports on us (I had mine, but there were only 6 other people that had them or copies of them, out of the 14 of us...)
the next day we found an antique market in an open square and went shopping there for an hour or so while we waited for a bus to come that would take us to the chocolate factory. finding the bus was hard enough work, but then we didn't really understand where we were going, so we got off a lot sooner than we should have, and were at least 15 minutes late to our tour. Italians are so kind, they were totally ok with that, and didn't even really seem frustrated by our confusion. the tour was entirely in Italian, but I was almost glad. I've gotten to the point where I want to learn Italian even faster than I am already, so I want to have as many chances to hear people speak it without knowing if I wait 5 seconds I'll be able to hear a translation. it kinda reminds me of church, because the missionaries don't translate for us most of the time, so I have to really pay attention to the lessons to figure out what they are about. usually I can follow along with the scripture reading, but I wish I had an Italian Bible because when I want to read, I can only ever read it in english.

definitely losing leaves now!

 that also reminds me that, probably the same weekend, I gave a talk in church! I had hoped that I would give one when I knew Italian better, but I got almost what I asked for. I was asked to give the talk the week before General Conference, so I had more than a month to learn and prepare for it. I tried my best to write

I'm excited for the change in weather

out an intro to myself in Italian so they could know who I am and what my family is like. then I relied heavily on the translated General Conference talks on lds.org, and a little on Google translate to put almost the rest of my talk in italian. I am proud to say that most of my talk was in Italian! even though I don't know exactly what I was saying, while I was saying it, I know the italians in the ward were grateful for my effort. the other two girls who were giving talks with me did not give their talks in Italian, so I was the only thing they understood (well besides announcements, hymns, sacrament prayer, and all other prayers given). there was a family visiting who had lived in the branch for a year a while back, and they were impressed with my efforts as well. the RM in the family had served his mission in Italy and said that my grammar was perfect. I should hope it was since I was using more quotes than my own speaking in my talk, but I was still happy to hear that I didn't butcher the pronunciation that much.
it is now officially fall in Siena. there are so many trees changing colors, and it's too cold to hang out outside for too long any more. we don't know what to do after school is over but before we want to go home. we're trying to find somewhere to hang out without having to pay for food or drinks, but so far we have just been using Professor Stanford's apartment once a week. we do an fhe, and then we make some American food we've been craving. last week it was Betty Crocker cake mix that was sent to someone, and this week it was french toast with homemade cinnamon syrup. so good! but we are going to change from doing it after school (and right before dinner) to sunday afternoons when we have nothing to do and nothing to eat soon so we can enjoy our family meals when we get home.