I woke up and was on the go again. The previous day, I had gone
to Milan for fashion week. This time, I went on another day trip to several
different cities in Italy: San Gimignano, Chianti, Siena and Monteriggioni.
We ended up on a tour bus where the tour was primarily given
in Spanish. Spanish and Italian are very similar so I spent the first couple of
minutes thinking that the tour was in Italian until I recognized some words to
be Spanish. Eventually, the tour guide would translate everything into English
but by that time if we were driving by a monument on the bus, we would already
pass it.
I thought that it was hilarious. I’m already trying to learn
Italian and I end up going on a primarily Spanish speaking tour in Italy. I
don’t know much Spanish either (only what I remember from my high school Spanish
class) so I was equally as confused during the Spanish parts. Everything looked really cool though so I
didn’t necessarily have to understand everything. There was a total of about 8
English speaking folks on the whole tour bus. 
First stop was to San Gimignano. They are known for some of
the best ice cream in the world. So naturally, I had to get some even though it
was only 9 or 10 in the morning. I got pineapple and Nutella flavored ice
cream. The pineapple was just way too much for me to handle but the Nutella was
perfect and very delicious. There were many mini photo shoots taken in this
town.
I also had my very first espresso. It was not my favorite. I
don’t like bitter and that is exactly what espresso is. Very. Very. Bitter. (I
didn’t know that before I ordered it) In order to actually drink it, I added a
great deal of white and brown sugar. After seeing me add a bunch of sugar, the
bartender asked me if I would like some milk to add in it and I gladly accepted
it. In the end, I ended up making my espresso into what they call here in Italy
a caffe latte but a mini version since they serve shots of espresso in a tiny
cup.
Sarah (my roommate) said that the bartender looked at me in
horror as he watched me poor the mountain of sugar into the espresso. I didn’t
really realize that coffee and espresso is a really big thing in Italy. They
drink the coffee for the taste, where as we (in America) drink it more to wake
us up, which is exactly why I actually bought the espresso because I was
exhausted from being in Milan the previous day. By the end of my experience though,
the bartenders saw it as more of a funny experience then an insult. I explained
to them that I was new to coffee and espresso and they were really
understanding about it. It’s interesting that a common drink such as coffee can
have two different meanings depending on what culture you are from. 
Next, we went to Chianti. Where we were able to do a food
and wine tasting. When we arrived the woman spoke to us in pure Italian and all
I could do was mimic what the other people in the room were doing. After
tasting two wines, some olive oil and cheese. She over heard my roommate and I
speaking in English and she switched over to English so we could understand her
as well.
What she was saying was to swivel the glass around (with the
wine in it) and then to smell the wine for a couple of seconds then to hold it
in your mouth for five seconds (when we first received new wine) She was also
explaining that the wine tastes different when you drink the wine and eat it
with different foods (which is COMPLETELY true!!)
In the first couple of weeks of being here, I discovered
that I don’t really like wine so I've started to avoid it. The wine is always too dry or bitter. But I just
tried the wine in Chianti to say that I have and I’m really glad that I didn’t chalk all
wine up to tasting the same. I ended up really liking the dessert wine (No surprise
there! It was super sweet to Sarah and my friend, Christina) I absolutely
loved it!! I also really liked the balsamic vinegar that we had as well, those were my
favorite from the entire tasting. We tasted some classic Chianti wine that wasn’t bad either. In total, we had four wines, two different types of olive oil with bread, a bit of cheese, salad and salami. (but I don't really eat pork so I didn't really eat it. I did try a bit though!)
We also had some really good pasta with olive oil on it and the
olive oil completely changed the taste of the pasta. It made plain pasta with sauce have really good flavor.
Siena was next.
This place is like a medieval town. There are 17 districts
each with their own separate flag. (It reminded me of the Hunger Games) The
streets are marked with a crest of which district they belong to. The only
place where there is neutral ground is called Piazza del Campo. It is also the
place where the hold the famous horse race, which is apparently one of the most
dangerous in the world. I guess that would make sense since our tour guide said
there were no rules. Anything and everything is fair game during the race.
Monteriggioni was our last stop. It is a medieval walled
town and a total of 50 people live there. 50 people. There were more people in
my high school graduating class (65) and I knew them all by name and could
pretty much tell you a history on each of them. I couldn’t imagine living in a
walled town with only 50 people but I am more of a big city type of girl. (I
plan on New York being in my future.) It had a nice small town type of feel.
