Days 85, 86, 87 (Monday through Wednesday)

            Monday, we all woke up at the crack of dawn to bring out our bags to be taken down the hill to the buses.  After we cleaned up the last of what was in our room, we went down into town to buy our last Molesini sandwich for our long bus ride ahead.  We said our last goodbyes to the various local Cortonians (our teacher’s daughters, the angels, Gino the caretaker…) we drove away.  I finally got a bit emotional about leaving this amazing place as we made our way down the hill.  For the next several hours, I slept until we arrived in Padua where we visited the Arena Chapel painted by the famous Renaissance artist, Giotto.  It was also the last student presentation.  Afterwards, we were given time to explore this university town, also being the site of a Shakespeare play.  The town was quite adorable.  My favorite part was the vast open, park-like space in the middle with lots of winding bridges over small streams, statues, and pathways meandering through it.  Finally, we all boarded the buses one last time to go to our last destination together: Venice.  We were stuck in traffic, when all of a sudden the bus was driving on this long bridge completely surrounded by water to get to the edge of Venice, which was the last place that vehicles could go on the islands.  We unloaded our bags onto these huge boats that would bring them to our hotel.  As soon as we arrived, Venice seemed almost magical, with its super confusing alleyways, endless bridges, and canals.  It was so refreshing to be near bodies of water and never have to worry about moving traffic.  We were all quite exhausted that first night; after we unloaded ourselves into our lovely hotel, we ate some pizza for dinner before going to bed. 

            Tuesday, we woke up early for a full day ahead of us.  Our first stop was San Marco, the beautiful church of Venice with is amazing mosaics decorating the walls, floor, and ceiling.  It was especially nice to go out on the upper balcony to get a better view of both the interior of the church and the outside views of the crowded piazza and water in the distance.  Our next destination was the fancy shmancy Realto bridge, with its many shops along the bridge.  It was nice, but I enjoyed the less touristy parts of Venice we explored next.  Venice is essentially a maze of tiny streets, bridges, alleys, and canals.  It is very difficult to not get lost.  We ate lunch at a restaurant with delicious pizza (yes I have eaten it for two meals in a row now), and then after we found the modern art museum, Ca’Pesaro.  This museum had a lovely collection; it was also the first paintings I have seen in a long time that were not Renaissance-style, so it was a refreshing experience.  I fell in love with a Pierre Bonnard piece, an artist I am loving more and more.  There was also an incredible Klimt painting which I could not tear my eyes from.  On our walk back to the hotel, we stopped at got delicious gelato at a place called Grom.  There are Groms all over Italy, and they are so good because they use all natural ingredients.  They definitely have my favorite fragola (strawberry) gelato out of all the fragola gelatos I have had.  They also had pink grapefruit, which was a perfect complementary flavor to strawberry, in addition to being a perfect color palette of pinks.  Everyone else then went to relax at the hotel, while Chloe and I did a little extra exploring.  We walked through some residential areas (we were surprised to see people actually living in Venice; not just tourists).  These areas were especially fun because all the young children were out playing together, and there were open produce markets, and overall, lots of people activity.  After dinner that evening, we walked to San Marco again to see it at night.  It was nice because there were small orchestra groups playing at different stops along the huge piazza and people were dancing everywhere.  It was a very festive night. 

            After a morning walk on Wednesday, we gathered with some other people on our program to take the Vaporetti (water metro system in Venice) to a college art school in another part of town.  Because the art school was near the Jewish ghetto area of Venice, we explore that part of town next.  It felt so out of place, yet comforting, to see Jewish boutiques along the streets and a man saying, “Shalom,” to me.  The best part was that we stumbled upon a Mediterranean restaurant owned by some Israelis.  We ate the most delicious lunch there: we ordered these tiny dishes of Israeli appetizers (there were 24 of these dishes total) that filled our table with colorful vegetables, salads, falafel, pita, and hummus!  You have no idea how happy I was to be eating hummus.  It was a great afternoon!  That afternoon (after Grom gelato of course), we went on a gondola ride through the narrow canals of Venice!  I felt like I was in a movie.  It was also nice to see Venice from a new perspective.  In the evening my whole program met together at a bar to have the saddest happy hour ever: our final farewell to each other.  The whole thing felt surreal.  Basically, everyone hugged everyone goodbye, cried, took pictures of each other…I could not believe I would not be seeing these amazing people anymore, after three crazy months.  It really was a blessing to work with such an inspirational group of artists.  After, my dinner group made our way to La Zucca, the tiny restaurant recommended to us by some teachers who ate there the night before.  It was so delicious: a superb last meal of Italy.  There were really interesting things on the menu like pesto and asparagus lasagna, pumpkin suffle, fresh ricotta and tomato taglietteli…Needless to say, we ate very well there.  

Days 81, 82, 83, 84 (Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday: Last days of Cortona!)

Thursday morning, I went on my last run of Cortona.  I know this now because I am typing this so late.  It was my last run because sadly my running shoes are completely worn through thanks to Italian cobblestone turf, causing my feet to be on the verge of stress fractures.  Nonetheless, it was an epic last run.  Beautiful views, no scary dogs, no creepy kidnappers…After that, I had my (second to) last Molesini’s sandwich which I ate with other Cortonians out on the steps in the main piazza in town.  It would have been a perfect lunch, except that somehow I managed to sit on a GIGANTIC wad of pink bubblegum.  It would have matched everything I owned except the outfit I was wearing that day, and it got all over the place.  I had to hurry back up the hill to change before the art ed exhibition show at the elementary school which was about to start.  The art ed exhibition ended up being ADORABLE.  Each of us set up our grades’ artwork in the front hallway of the school.  A large number of the kids came with their parents and siblings.  It made me so happy to see the kids be so proud of their artwork.  The principle came, who I had actually never seen before, and gave a long speech, which I really do not know what it was about because it was all in Italian.  Then the students presented us each with flowers.  I found it amusing that each of the flowers was tied with red, white, and blue ribbons.  Yay America!  My art ed class had games prepared to play with the kids which ended up being so fun.  I had never seen such intense three-legged races or games of duck duck goose in my life.  The Italian children took them so seriously.  It was hard to leave the school…teaching my third graders has definitely been one of the most delightful parts of Cortona. 

            After dinner that night was Rick’s (our director) 64^th birthday celebration taking place in our favorite Lion’s Well Pub.  As I said before, we had to dress up as a Beatle’s song, and it was quite exciting to see what everyone came up with.  I was thoroughly impressed with everyone’s creativity, especially with the limited resources we had to work with.  I ended up being Sgt. Pepper (without my lonely hearts club band, but that’s okay).  I borrowed my friend’s military jacket (identical to what they are actually wearing on the album cover) and borrowed my other friend’s red pepper keychain to dangle from one of the buttons.  I also decorated the back of the jacket with the handmade pepper paper that I made in paper making.  Needless to say, I was proud of my costume.  The whole night we sang along and danced to Beatle’s tunes.  This type of party should happen more often in my opinion.  At about one a.m., some friends and I decided to return to our building.  We were on our way when we smelled delicious bread baking in the air.  We were aware that bakers started making bread in the middle of the night for the following day.  We decided to follow the scent with our noses to see what we would find.  After following some extremely narrow ally ways, we found a little bread factory tucked away with three guys inside busy making bread.  They let us inside so we could watch; I had never seen such gigantic mixers or monstrous sacks of flour.  It was definitely one of the most exciting things I had ever seen so far and it smelled AMAZING.  Before we left, the bakers gave us some fresh focaccia straight out of the oven.  It melted in your mouth. 

            Friday was rainy and gross, which made it a good packing and organizing day.  It felt so strange to actually be packing to leave Cortona.  I remember unpacking three months ago with the feeling that we would be staying in this fifteenth century convent forever.  I guess that was not the case.  That evening was our FINAL dinner together as a program, also being our last dinner at our restaurant Tonino’s.  The angels (the ladies who make our beds and clean our rooms) were invited and they, in addition to the staff of Tonino’s, were each going to be honored and receive a present from us.  The whole evening felt kind of surreal.  Everyone looked nicer than usual and photos were snapping everywhere.  The dinner was ELEVEN courses, instead of our usual three: antipasta, two pasta courses, salad, meat, potatoes, eggplant parmesan, two vegetable courses, beans, and dessert.  This is in addition to lots of wine throughout the meal.  We could barely move when dinner finally finished (it lasted almost three hours!)   It was definitely a dinner we would all remember. 

            Saturday I woke up early to ship home my box of homemade books along with other things that I accumulated along the way, so I did not have to lug them around with me for the rest of my traveling.  It also gave me a chance to enjoy a lovely Saturday morning in Cortona, which also happened to be my LAST one.  I got to wander through the Saturday market and all of my favorite little shops.  Afterwards, I went on a wonderful walk outside of town along the mountains, ending with some quality gelato in town.  I did not eat out that night because I needed to use up all of my vegetables and cheese.  However, I did join my friends for a dessert at one of our favorite restaurants, Mario’s for tiramisu, which we may be able to get the recipe for…

            Sunday: our last full day of Cortona.  A lot of people in my program were starting to get emotional about leaving our beloved town.  Personally, it has not hit me yet that we are leaving; I am in a state of denial.  There was a program-wide Bocci tournament that started in the morning, and ended up lasting right until dinner.  I did not participate in the actual game, but I did enjoy cheering on the teams and eating the complementary delicious snacks.  Later, I went on my first long walk of the day.  I returned to be joined up with Jeanette, Katie, and Ally to go on a final walk to Le Celle, the Franciscan monastery.  It definitely worked up our appetites for my last gelato and dinner of Cortona (it still had not hit me yet that we were leaving).  We picked a new restaurant hidden away in the narrow allies for our last dinner.  Once again, it was a quaint tiny place, and I order some wonderful gnocchi with fresh tomato and basil sauce…I cannot get enough of that stuff.  Our way back up to the school building would be our LAST walk up the mountain!

Days 78, 79, 80 (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday)

            Monday morning, my entire program had to wake up early to help take down the art show.  Most of the art pieces were going to be shipped back through the program, but mine was too big to fit in the crates.  Therefore, I was responsible for sending home all my paintings on my own (lucky me).  I did not think it was possible, but with the help of Chloe, I was able to lug my (HUGE) painting all the way back up to our school building…it took awhile to accomplish this.  I then used my afternoon to finish my final book project, which needed its last finishing touches.  I am really excited with how it turned out: it is a VERY fat book, with lots of pages, beautiful stitched binding, and collaged covers and pages, expressing my themes of memory and history.  In the afternoon, we were all looking forward to a massive studio walkthrough, where my entire program would wander through everyone’s studio space to see everyone’s art pieces because the vast majority of our artwork was not in the art show.  Even Luca, the photography teacher’s fiver-year-old son, exhibited his artwork.  It was so much fun to see what everyone was up to these last few months.  I had never even been inside the ceramics studio and the metals workshop.  Once again, I was completely amazed at my colleagues’ abilities.  Meanwhile, the weather outside was being especially dramatic.  The sky overhead was exceptionally bright and sunny, but in the distant landscape, you could see rain falling from heavy clouds and shiny streaks of lightning every few minutes.  It was quite a sight to see. 

            On Tuesday, my art ed class was meeting my art ed teacher, Erin, to eat a potluck lunch together at her apartment in town.  Besides the fact that Erin is my favorite faculty in the program, I was excited to see what Cortonian apartments looked like inside.  Her apartment was ADORABLE!  Although, if you are a few inches taller than me, you would bump your head on the ceiling.  After climbing three flights of narrow stairs, we entered into the quaintest little kitchen I have EVER seen that leads to a small terrace that overlooks a beautiful view complete with endless terracotta rooftops.  And that is not even the best part.  The best part: Erin had previously agreed to let me use her kitchen and oven to BAKE dessert for our lunch.  Oh yes.  I have not baked in three months, and I could not have been more excited.  Someone else brought the flour, sugar, and eggs.  I brought a left over giant chocolate Easter egg (to brake up into chocolate chip pieces) and peanut butter.  Without measuring anything, I mixed everything together and formed a gigantic chocolate chip peanut butter cookie cake creation on Erin’s baking sheet that I stuck into the oven.  Because her oven was in Celsius, I estimated how hot it should be.  We ate our lunch together on her terrace.  The menu: pasta with fresh tomato sauce, grilled vegetables, arugula and strawberry salad, fresh fruit, iced tea, and of course my cookie for dessert.  (The cookie disappeared in less than three minutes!  I was really proud).  It was definitely the loveliest lunch.  We all left very happy.  Later in the afternoon, I had my final critique for book making, which went very well.  After that, I accomplished one of my dreaded tasks: taking my paintings off their frames and rolling them up together and then wrapping them in plastic and tape to be shipped home.   I actually thought I did a pretty good job!  When Jeanette was helping me carry the large roll of paintings down the hall into town to be fedexed, it felt like we were carrying a body because the roll of paintings was as tall as me, and weighed at least as much as I did.  My paintings are now in the mail, so keep an eye out for them! 

            Wednesday was completely open to do anything.  Jeanette and I were craving to see Fra Angelico’s “Annunciation” painting that we studied endlessly in art history.  The actual painting was commissioned for a church in Cortona during the fifteenth century, although now it is displayed in a museum in town.  It was so nice to see this artwork in person.  We met Chloe in town to eat lunch a little while later.  In the afternoon, I went on a huge walk, during which I was almost kidnapped by an old Italian man who was driving by.  Initially, he stopped his car and asked if I needed a ride somewhere.  I said no, I was on a walk.  Several minutes later, as I was continuing on my walk, I noticed that he was standing in front of a gated property waiting for me.  He asked if I was a UGA art student, and after I explained that indeed I was a painter, he INSISTED that I come and see a view from his yard, because I simply MUST come back and paint it.  I decided that it would not hurt anyone to go and see this view, which was very nice.  Then, he insisted once again that I come inside his house because he wanted to talk to me.  He asked about the kind of art I do, and then started reading my PALM, telling me that I have some sort of big problem in the future.  He then started telling me about his own life story, asking me questions as well.  After awhile, the whole ordeal started feeling a little creepy, because this old man was just a bit TOO nice and did not intend me leaving.  Eventually I just started walking away, explaining that I had to get to class, and that no I did NOT want him to drive me back to Cortona.  The entire situation was completely weird.  The rest of my walk, I did not talk to any more strangers and I picked beautiful flowers on the way back to Cortona.  I do think I can get enough of the beauty Cortona has to offer.  

Days 76 and 77 (Art Show Weekend!)

            We all have been waiting for this day to come: our art exhibition opens today!  It was weird being in Cortona on a Saturday, because we are usually on our field trips the entire day.  It was nice to experience the Saturday activity in Cortona which included a cute little flea market in the main piazza.  It was similar to the one I explored in Camucia a few days ago.  After a little browsing, I went on an extremely long walk, which was perfectly refreshing.  When I got back, all the girls were already getting ready for the art show.  It felt like everyone was getting ready for prom or something because hair and makeup was being done, nails were being painted, and shoes were being borrowed…It was a very big ordeal for everyone.  The exhibition was held in an old building in town.  This whole week, we had posters hanging up throughout Cortona advertising our show to everyone.  My painting was one of the first pieces you saw right as you walked in.  I was so excited to see everyone’s work; it really was an impressive show.  Until then, I had no idea what the other studios were up to.  I was amazed with some of the ceramics, metal work, photography, homemade paper…There was also slide show of incredible art ed teaching photos.  The best part, besides the table of fancy snacks and sparkling wine, was that fact that a large part of the Cortona community came to see our show.  I recognized so many faces from town.  Our friend Bryan Mark Taylor (the American artist) and his wife and ADORABLE kids even came!  (Jeanette and I run into them all the time and have become pretty good friends.  We have even offered to babysit their kids).  It was wonderful seeing my whole program together dressed up and proud of their hard work from the course of the semester.  I was especially impressed with some of the sprucing up of our teachers.  After the show, a group of friends and I went to celebrate at our favorite pizza place, known for its amazing pear and walnut pizza, which most of us ordered.  The only exception is that I ordered mine with a side of spinach. (Typical).  The evening was oh-so-wonderful. 

            Sunday was really gorgeous. I went running and read outside for the majority of the day.  The art show was open all day for people to explore, and then at five p.m., there was a sort of closing ceremony of our art show where there was a reading of the written pieces from the creative writing class.  My friend Chloe was reading the children’s story that I was illustrating for her, “Hello Yellow, My Name is Blue.”  Because the story was essentially a conversation between the two colors, I read for Yellow, while she read for Blue.  It was exciting to be the only non-creative writer to make an appearance.  The rest of the creative writing students and teachers read their own poems and stories, and I was really impressed by everyone.  Afterward, my usual dinner group and I decided to explore another new restaurant in Cortona for dinner (afterall, our dinners in Cortona were dwindling and we needed to make the best of them).  We were recommended to go to a restaurant called Fuflums, where I ended up having a beautiful plate of grilled vegetables and melted cheese.  None of us could believe that there was only one more weekend to go…

Days 74 and 75 (Thursday and Friday)

            Thursday, I ran to the flee market that is held each Thursday morning in Camucia, the town down the mountain.  It is a mix of stands selling clothing, shoes, linens, and random things with stands selling produce, cheeses, and meats.  It was fun to explore, but it was so hot, that I was wary of trudging back up the mountain.  Luckily, I happened to run into Gino, who is our grounds worker at our school building.  He offered to drive me back to the school, so I thankfully accepted.  We had one-on-one meetings with our painting teacher that afternoon.  We discussed the development of my paintings during the course of the semester.  Afterwards, I went on a walk around Cortona, studying my art history flash cards.  My walk somehow ended up at Snoopy’s, the wonderful gelato place in Cortona, where there was a gathering of people from my program who also decided that it would be a good time for gelato, the perfect study snack.  I could not agree more. 

            Friday, everyone was cramming for our test that evening.  It seemed to take forever for this test to finally get here.  I started my day with a terrific run, and then in book making, even though we are still working on our final projects, we had to begin cleaning out the studio.  Finally, we took our test, and although I got severe writing cramps, I thought I was well prepared for it.  After dinner, and a celebratory gelato for being done with art history, some friends and I decided to make a fort in our large and spacious room using chairs, mattresses, bed sheets, and duct tape.  This may seem random, but we had actually been planning it for a while now.  It was the perfect space to watch a movie, which is what we did.  I would like to take note that in the past two days, I had somehow managed to trip and fall flat on my face twice (not even during my runs!), my first fall landing on my right knee, and my second fall landing on my left knee.  I now have two huge bruises on both knees.  Oh dear. 

Shabbat Shalom to everyone!  

Days 71, 72, 73 (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday)

            On Monday morning, I thankfully had no dogs chasing me on my run.  In painting, we had our final critiques.  I had never been so nervous for mine, but it went amazingly well.  Everyone responded quite enthusiastically to my painting, agreeing that it was my best painting of the semester.  I was very proud of the positive reaction, but even more, I was proud of myself for once.  Usually, I am so critical of my own art, but I was really excited about my final painting.  Even before the critique happened, I decided to put this painting into the final show, which was quickly approaching.  I had to give it a title, so I called it “Verdure Blu” (Blue Vegetable).  The rest of the day was devoted to art history studying.

            Tuesday was our last day teaching in the elementary school in Cortona.  Even from only four days total of teaching, I have really grown attached to my third graders here, as crazy and wild as they can be.  They finished up their superhero comics and shared them with each other until the end of class.  We had a very dramatic good-bye filled with hugging over and over again, although we still have an art show for them next week, so hopefully they will all come.  Being able to interact with these kids has definitely been one of the best parts of Cortona.  That afternoon, I continued on my final project in book making, and later on continued with my lovely art history studying. 

            Wednesday morning, we had our Cortona program group portrait taken by a funny Italian photographer.  I was amused by it, because we were all sitting on the steps of Cortona’s main piazza waiting for him to come and prep us for the photo.  Well, he did come with his camera, but without any warning and without saying anything, he just started snapping photo after photo of us.  We finally started smiling when we realized what was happening, but I am interested to see what the first few photos that he took look like, when no one was aware of what was happening.  Immediately after our group portrait, my art ed class and I hopped into a van to go to Sodo, the elementary school down the mountain from Cortona, which we briefly visited the week before.  I was extremely nervous about this day of teaching here because I remembered from our visit how wild the class seemed.  I was not looking forward to spending several hours with scissors and glue sticks flying through the air (this is what I imagined).  The third graders at Sodo definitely proved me wrong.  The class of 22 worked amazingly well for almost two and half hours.  They had brilliant ideas for the superhero collage project, and were actually well-disciplined throughout the entire day.  I was also taken aback at how loving everyone one was.  Several students had given us drawings and notes upon our arrival (my favorite is a drawing of me in a purple dress sitting on a hammock between two pink cotton candy-like trees.  This student knows me too well).  Everyone was really excited about the project, their superheroes were so original.  Something that I was amused by was that all the kids were interested in how we spelled our names and what our signatures looked like.  The entire class ended up asking us for our autograph.  When it was time for lunch, all the third graders fought with who would be able to sit next to us.  They literally attached themselves to us, making it extremely difficult to walk to their cafeteria.  I was amazed at how lunch worked in this elementary school.  It is essentially just like our three-course dinner at Tonino’s in Cortona.  There are tables set up with nice ceramic plates, glasses, and silverware (no Styrofoam or paper or plastic).  The students are all very independent, pouring their own water from large water containers and cutting their own food.  The first course was a plain pasta, second course was a meat and spinach, and for dessert, everyone got fresh pineapple.  The whole school ate together, including all the teachers.  I found this to be such a nice way to eat lunch as a community.  I had a very fun table who bombarded me with questions the entire time.  Before we were served our second course, they seemed to be experts of all the foods that I liked, and told the lunch lady for me that I was a vegetarian and would not eat the meat, but would love the spinach.  Once again, we had a dramatic good-bye.  All the third graders hugged me over and over.  This was definitely the most fun teaching experience I had ever had.  The rest of the day was not nearly as fun.  I went on a run, and then we had our last art history lecture, ending with the enigmatic Mona Lisa.  Then at dinner, we found out that there was a ballet performace to Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” at the theater in Cortona.  We decided to get some culture and go see this, expecting a nice traditional ballet.  What we ended up seeing was definitely not your typical ballet.  It was the most modern of all dances, with Vivaldi juxtaposed with strange noises and sounds.  The dancers performed moves that I previously thought were not humanly possible, constantly defying gravity and rolling around on other people.  It was mesmerizing, and at some points rather creepy, to watch.  At one point one of the male dancers was dancing with just a projected image of another dancer, and it took me forever to decide whether or not she was real or just a projection of light.  Overall, the dance was extremely weird, but awesome.  

Days 68, 69, 70 (Friday, Saturday, Sunday)

            Friday was a nice change of pace from previous Fridays because I only had one class today, as opposed to my usual eight long hours of class.  As usual, my day started out with a run.  I decided to go farther than usual on one of my mountainside routes.  Before I was about to turn around, I noticed two dogs barking down the steep valley below me.  About a minute later, when I actually did turn around to go back the way I came, I realized the two dogs had some how made up onto the road and were coming straight toward me, barking angrily.  It is critical to take note that these two dogs were actually two extremely large, EXTREMELY ferocious, crazy dogs.  After one good look at their dangerously looking sharp teeth, I panicked and decided my only option was to rock climb up the mountain on my right side.  (My other options were to turn around with the dogs chasing me or fall down the steep valley on my left side).  I climbed a few tree limbs, but realized that trying to climb up the mountain would be a near-impossible feat.  I really had no idea what I was going to do; the dogs were pacing around right below me, barking louder and louder.  THANK GOODNESS that a few minutes later, two large vans drove by, which startled the dogs who ran back down the valley where they came from.  I took this opportunity to sprint away as fast as I possibly could.  I did not look back, and I never plan on returning to this spot, despite how beautiful it was.  After I arrived back to Cortona, thankfully in one piece, I made a delicious vegetable lunch and went to my one class of the day, book making, to get some work done on my final project.  It took me the full three hours of class to sew the twenty-one signatures of my book together.  A signature is one grouping of folding paper that forms the pages of the book.  I am very excited with the progress I am making…I cannot wait to see what the final product will look like!

            On Saturday, we went on our last field trip of the semester to Siena.  Siena is yet another beautiful old Italian town with a gorgeous cathedral and a museum containing a famous Duccio altarpiece painting that we studied in depth in art history class.  I took my time in the cathedral because every element of it was so ornate, from the mosaic floors to the sculptures and ceiling.  However, when I emerged outside, I could not find a single member from my program.  There were swarms of tourists, but none of them were familiar faces.  So, I decided to wander on my own to explore Siena.  It was nice to move through the town at my own pace.  Of course, because I was my own tour guide, I made sure to visit every fancy grocery store and fine food shop, because Siena was packed with these types of places.  These stores sold super luxury cheeses, wines, biscotti and other cookies, spices, honey, pasta sauces, and my favorite: beautiful pastas in all colors and shapes, including pastas that were striped candy colors.  Everything looked so beautiful and delicate.  I grabbed some pizza for lunch, and wandered up and down the streets of Siena all day.  There is a gigantic open piazza in the middle of town where horse races are held annually in the warmer seasons.  Apparently these are very big deal, because the piazza, which is probably the size of several track fields put together, is packed with people to watch the race.  At the end of the day, I was getting a little worried, because I had no idea how to get back to the area outside of town where the bus dropped us off and would pick us up again.  I was especially stressed, because I knew the bus would leave without me if I did not show up.  The streets of Siena twist and turn quite a bit, and I had very little sense of direction here, even with my map.  Luckily, just as I was making yet another circle, I ran into my group who I usually walk with (and who can read maps very well) and knew exactly where to go.  So, I am not still lost in Siena as I type this.  Phew.  When we arrived back in Cortona, we had a painting party all night, working on our final painting projects.  I am working on my super-large canvas, another painting of a juxtaposition of a figural pepper and my own hands, legs, and feet.  I love painting on such a big scale.  I can imagine myself painting on a huge wall, so big, that I would need a sliding ladder or something to reach the entire surface.  I went to sleep that night smelling strongly like turpentine and oil paint. 

            Sunday, like the week before, was another dreary day.  This was probably a good thing, because it forced me inside to study for art history all day.  By the afternoon, I was too antsy from being inside all day, so I went out into the drizzling weather for a walk.  Little did I know, that when I was about a mile away from Cortona, it starting violently ice raining on me, with ice pellets falling aggressively in every direction.  I sped home as fast as I could to get out of the treacherous weather.  I spent the rest of the day finishing up my final painting until dinner when Jeanette, my friend Chloe, and I went to out to another new restaurant for dinner.  The restaurant was in an extremely old 15^th century building that used to be a rich family’s mansion.  The restaurant was only part of the entire mansion, and we ate in this spooky, yet beautiful room in the basement, where the horses were kept.  There was another American couple eating there (we can seek out American couples with their north face jackets) who we talked to for a little bit, recommending to them places they should not miss.  Our food was wonderful!  I ate a triangular shaped ravioli stuffed with fresh spinach and was served with chicory, grape tomatoes, and a pine nut sauce.  It was incredible!  I was also interested in what Jeanette ordered: a mushroom, walnut, and apple risotto.  We also each ordered a side vegetable.  I decided on some grilled vegetables, which came in the most lovely rainbow format with red peppers next to yellow peppers next to green zucchini next to purple eggplant.  I almost did not want to eat the grilled vegetables, I enjoyed looking at it so much.  Before long, we had spent almost three hours in the restaurant; it was such a delicious evening.