Returning home was such a relief.  When I first showed up in Italy everything just felt very chaotic and rushed,  traffic was crazy, people trying to sell stuff.  Compared to America it was just walk right to my car without bumping into people, driving was normal again. It was nice.

The airports in America I feel are way more nice and helpful. I had a problem when returning and they helped solve the problem right away.  Compared to Italy I had a hard time with some workers they were really rude  just because I didn’t speak Italian,  then I had two Italian boys try the same request for me and they helped them no problem (it was not a language barrier thing.)

I was super tired when I got to Italy I fell asleep and slept in the next day for like 13 hours.  When I got back to America I was surprisingly not as tired as I thought I would be, I tried to stay up for 24 hours so when I went to sleep here I could get back on a normal sleep schedule.   That really helped with the jet lag.

I guessed Italy would be full of smoking people, pick pockets, and hot weather, short shorts, English restaurants.  I turned out to be right and wrong.  These factors really deepened on where we were.

For example Rome was supper hot because of all the extra cars, people, and little trees,  Where as Siena was much cooler because its not a tourist spot and people don’t drive much there. I was also informed that the session plays a big part in the weather I just happened to show up at the hottest part, but the funny thing is that the first day I showed up it was raining, the first few nights it was cold, but then it got hot; Real hot! One day at 9 am it was already 95 with 90% humidity!

Pick pockets were really only in tourist areas and on trains.  Not so much where I was staying.

But no matter where you were people were smoking everywhere!  I even had a waitress say I will get your bill in two minutes after I have a cigarette.

People were not wearing shot shorts,  Yes some where,  but most would  wear pants Like the heat did not bother them.

Most restaurants had very little English.  Good thing my program taught how to order in a restaurant in Italian!

I think I interacted a lot with my new culture,  I tried to speak Italian every chance I got,  I joined in on activities such as the palio,  I interacted with strangers, etc

I have mix emotions about coming home.  I really am home sick now and would love to see my family and pets, but it is like I am losing my second family here in Italy  so I am also sad to be leaving.  I defiantly want to come back and say hello and all my teachers again, stay in contact with my new friends, etc.

Over all I would recommend going to Italy especially In this program!

Goodbye, Siena! I will see you again someday!

We are at the end of our last week.  It is a bitter sweet moment,  I am excited to go home, but I am going to hate leaving the amazing city of Siena!

Here is just a couple of things I have noticed around Italy that is a little strange that I thought I might share with you on my last week.

The lights are very strange, most bathroom lights are outside of the bathroom or you have to have a card or chip to put into a socket to keep the lights on.  Toilets you can decided how much water you want to flush its not a set amount.

All stores usually close around 7-8 PM which is very strange to me.  This does not go for everyone,  but I have met a lot of people who are rude to my friend Sierra and I just because we were american,  On the other hand we did have people that were exceptionally nice to us and went out of their way to help us!

This week I have taken all my finals,  watched some spectacular presentations,  packed up my apartment, and now it is time to go.  Nothing special has really happened this week just the test.

On our last night we had a huge celebration with all our classmates and our teachers.  They took us out to dinner and we stayed out till around 2 am!  At this celebration we had 4 different languages at once!  Those being English, ASL, Italian, LIS (Italian sign.)  All of us knowing a little bit of each language we were able to communicate and have a great time!

I will truly miss every one of my teachers, advisers, and new friends.

My advisers!      

Rita deaf culture teacher, Sierra, and I.

Laura my LIS teacher and I

This week was just a mix of bad and amazing.  I will start with the bad first.  Then end on a happier note.

Last weekend was awful!  my friend Sierra and I paid to go on a tour to see more history about Italy,  but we missed the tour,  Then my phone was stolen because my phone was stolen we missed our train,  Lastly we got stuck in a different city because apparently in Italy trains do not go far distances after 7:30 PM

Even though all this happened  This week was AMAZING.  Because we missed our tour we made our own day traveling,  while we did that we turning around to ask someone in the line for the bus if we needed a ticket,  The husband and wife tell us they cant help us because they are deaf!  (This is perfect because we are studying sign language)  So we got to try out our new LIS  (Italian sign)  skills. I would also like to add that the classes here are so fun!

Also In my last blog I talked about the different contradas and how the pallio was going to happen.  This week we got to see it!.  This event is no joke!  The tower contrada is the one what won.  Before the race there are parades, then the jokey are blessed and at this point can not be changed.  Then they have police bring a paper of the order of the line up that the horses will stand in.  Now this paper is extremely important because it determines how good you will probably do in the race.  Jokeys will try to switch places, because it has to be in this specific order it can take hours to start the race I would say we stood there for a good two hours waiting for them to quit cheating and get in order.  Then the race started at the end  people started cheering, crying, screaming.  I even saw a few fights brake out between enemy contradas  It was a huge thing.  It lasted from 3 pm- 12am and into the next day.  they paraded around the horses, they were singing, the campo (where the race happened)  was PACKED.  You could only stand there was barley any room, flags were all over the place.

I did a little digging into why people would be fighting,  Apparently  contradas that know they can not win will group up to help another or try to hurt their enemy.  For example, a jokey in a contrada that will not win may whip another jokey or their horse,  sometimes they knock them off their horses, It is really insane.

I really can not explain well enough how amazing and intense the whole pallio was you would defiantly have to see it in person.

Below are pictures of the parade, a horse that raced, and how packed the campo was.

I am just ending my first week abroad in Siena Italy, and wow!  In just this week alone I have heard so many interesting historical stories, myths in this culture, seen historical places, and the culture it’s self.

In this post I really want to talking about the contradas.  Now you may be asking what is this; a contrada is an area in Siena.  Sieana is broken down into 18 different contadads each having their own mascots.  Some mascots are the eagle, tortes, snail, and the unicorn.  A persons contrada depends on where you are born and grown up.  When you are born you are baptized in a fountain in your contrada ( this is not a religious thing, more like a right of passage.)  Now I live in the Unicorn contrada. Each contrada has its own flag and colors.  Everyday you can hear drums from one of the contradas and see parades with flags, music, people following.  It is a big deal here.

So what is the point of this?  A big horse race called the palio will be happening on July 2nd and all the contradas, come and watch this race hoping for their team to win.  People carry flags of their contradas and wear their colors,

Each contrada  has an enemy, for example the eagles hate the fish.  People know when they step in a different contrada  because immediately the flags change and all the lamps and statues now match the new contrada.

I learned all my information by my school,  they took us on two all day tours of the city and its history.

Below I attached 3 pictures:  1, of the fish flag, 2. where two contadas meet, and 3, a parade( of the unicorn contrada 🙂 )

Hello, my name is Elaina Snow and I am studying abroad in Sienna Italy.  I am going for three week for the deaf studies program,  I will be taking three classes; Italian sign language, Spoken and written Italian, and deaf history and culture.

I picked this program for a couple reasons.  I am an ASL interpreting major so I was hoping that this will boost my ASL skills both signing and receptive. I want to meet more signers and deaf people to get different perspectives on signs.  Also I have always wanted to go to Europe so this is the perfect chance.  Lastly my grandparents are from Italy and they always cook authentic Italian food and it is so good,  and they talked about how pretty it is so  I decided to pick this program for both educational and personal reasons.

Well as soon as I got off the plane it was raining, probably harder then it does in Oregon, except it was warm rain so that was nice.  As for shorts and skirts; nothing almost everyone was wearing pants and tee shirts.  I probably looked pretty crazy for wearing shorts.

I needed a phone because mine couldn’t find wifi so I asked a desk at the airport and they said that they do not let people use the phones and that i had to use public phones outside,  that just struck me as odd.

When I was trying to get to my hotel I had a car pick me up from my hotel.  These Europeans drive crazy!  People where cutting each other off squeezing in everywhere they could it, it was insane. Another thing I found strange was that there was people trying to sell stuff to drivers that were stopped in traffic,  they were just walking around in the middle of the street.

The last weird thing to me was my Hotel I expected that to be pretty normal, but it was not my hotel was in the middle of a building with other business I had to go to the 5th floor out of 10 to reach the reception office to check in,  There was a really creepy elevator, that only let one person at a time on it was pretty much something out of tower of terror.  It was just strange only one person at a time

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Sorry its sideways I couldn’t figure out how to rotate it.  It looks like it is out of tower of terror right!

I think Italy will be fun but a total culture shock.  I think there will be tons of smoking everywhere, pick pocketing, and supper crowded.  I’m guessing it will be hot and sunny most if the time and people will be wearing shorts or skirts.  I think that most places like restaurants have someone that speaks a little bit of English but not all of them.

I plan on trying to dive right into the culture trying to learn words as I go,  seeing historic places, and talking to new people.

I am supper nervous because I have never left the country and I will be alone in a place that doesn’t speak English.  It is also really stressful because of the money situation,  I didn’t have  extra money laying around to get plane tickets and everything else I needed and Financial aid doesn’t come in until June 19th and I start school on the 20th.  Plus learning how euros work,  I’m sure that will be a fun adventure

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