Classes, gelato, and "cena" - another good day in Italy!

I had another good day of Italian class with Marco. We focused on pronunciation and informal vs. formal. I forgot to mention yesterday that my Italian name is Stefania. Halfway through the class (which is a 2 ½ hour class), Marco gave Elena and I a ten minute coffee break – only in Italy do professors give coffee breaks! After class, I ate at a café near school. With my insalata came four pieces of bread and a to-go packet of olive oil (again, only in Italy!). I worked on my Italian homework, and when I got back to Stella’s, I sat with her while she ate lunch. She was very interested in hear what I learned in class and helped answer questions about my homework. At three, I had my first Sienese Art and Architecture class. Today we met in a classroom, but most of the times our lectures take place around Siena so we can see what we are studying/what our textbooks talk about. Our professor, who told us to call him P.G., is a very Italian man with a thick accent who was hard to understand at points. He is very energized by Sienese art, and in the course of the 2 ½ hour lecture, I took six full pages of notes on Siena history and how it shaped its art! I found a lot of the background information quite interesting, especially since we will be going on a tour around Siena for class tomorrow to elaborate on the points he made in class. I am only mildly convinced that he knows the story of Romulus and Remus is a myth because he found so much pride in Siena being founded by a she-wolf and spent about five minutes telling us the evidence of their existence in Rome! He evidently likes soccer a lot too, mentioning the Siena soccer stadium as the last important structure built in Siena and calling soccer the official religion of Italy. It was raining again after class, but we quickly found refuge in Kopa Kabana, for our weekly gelato night paid for by CET (making the gelato taste even that much better)! Afterwards, Stella taught Ana Rose and I how to make Tuscan ragu, but we won’t be having it tonight because it is only good enough to eat the next day. While the real meal was cooking, I did a kickboxing workout DVD, which Stella found very entertaining. She said that I looked too “angelic” to be boxing! For dinner, we had Stella’s homemade spaghetti, with a sauce that is made from fresh tomatoes, parsley, lemon, bits of tuna, and lots of garlic. We also had a salad with shredded carrots as the main substance instead of lettuce with chick peas, celery, cucumber, and tomato. She makes her salad dressing out of spicy mustard and vinegar, which is also yummy. To go with the salad we of course had fresh bread and then she made anchovies with lemon zest, oil, and onion. They were surprising good and did not taste fishy or salty at all! Afterwards, Stella showed us a music video her son Francesco made with his band Pott-Rum, and we are going to try to go to one of his concerts this summer. Buona notte per ora!