Today, we met a very eccentric wine maker, who apparently reads Tolstoy. He gave us many words of wisdom on life, and it's hard to tell which were his and which weren't. He told us (in Italian) to "Eat. Drink. Love strong. And do not fear death." He told us that wine is life, and told us the very extremes that it can do (i.e. make you remember, make you forget; provide nourishment, lead to death; make you happy, make you cry; extremes being just enough, too much). He reminded us that the only thing in the middle of these extremes is ourselves. I know that it may be cheesy or whatever, but I really enjoyed hearing it from a happy Italian who passionately enjoys life.
I guess that it now goes without saying that we did a wine tasting today! The man that I just wrote about gave us a tour of his vineyard/gardens and into the wine cellar before taking us up to taste! We tried three different "vinos rosso" and a dessert wine. With the wine, they served us a "before dinner snack" which held me over a little past dinner. Instead of the American wine tasting of sipping, swishing, and spitting, we drank each glass. I'm not complaining though because it was delicious! I bought a bottle of the second wine that we had, even though what I really wanted to do was to have it shipped home, but it's crazy expensive. Our program instructors said that we can take up to 2 bottles home in our luggage, but I'm not sure if I will be able to since I am under the legal drinking age in the States. What a bummer! Anyone have some suggestions?
Before we did wine tasting, we went to Siena, a small but beautiful little Tuscan town. We started with a tour of the city before being let free for lunch. Here is how I described Siena in an e-mail to a friend: They're long-time rivals with the Florentines. All over the city, they have imitations of the "Capitoline Wolf" (or she-wolf, as they call it) statue because they say that it is "better to be Roman than Florentine." So anyways, all over town, they have flags displayed because the town is split into "contradas" and each has a flag with colors and an animal. The people are born into whichever contrada they live at, and they have to show loyalty to it their whole lives. What the contradas are for is a horse race called the Palio which is held twice a year, once tomorrow (July 2nd) and the other on August 16th, both for religious reasons. So anyways, the whole town was in an uproar today in preparations for the race. It rained yesterday, so the horses were unable to practice. Today, it completely stormed. The track (the center square in town) was flooded and it was hailing and thundering: the whole deal. While we were stranded in a cafe, waiting for the rain to stop, a girl wrapped an owl contrada scarf around her. We were in a cafe that was a part of the elephant contrada. The waiter joked with her that if it had been anyone else (those flirty Italians), they would have had to stand outside with the owl scarf. They take these races so seriously and base their entire lives around them. It's such a funny yet interesting thing. Some of the girls compared the emblems to the houses in Harry Potter.
I hope that I covered enough. I wish that I could share more, but I am just so exhausted recently! This past week as been very busy and very exhausting. I've been napping alot, which is probably bad, but my entire body aches in exhaustion. Nevertheless, we are about to go out for coffee. It's a Friday night, Natalie, c'mon, you have to do something!
Blessings.
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