The Cozy Little Town that is Siena

Today we took a day trip to frolick around Siena. The day did not start well. The first place we visited was the church of St. Catherine, where her actually head is chilling in a glass box. I, of course was very excited about seeing the decaying head of a really old person. But, as soon as we walked into the church, about 10 of us were yelled at in Italian and herded out the door again. Turns out, the Italians don't appreciate bare shoulders in their churchs; some of us were wearing tank tops. One girl went and bought a shawl to put over her shoulders and the rest of us waited for someone with a coat/shawl to come out so we could borrow it and see inside. Needless to say, I did get to see the head of St. Catherine. We spent the rest of the day seeing all the churches and museums and touristy places of Siena, while being lectured at by our Art History professor here at the Villa. A few places later, I began to think "I really don't care what kind of arches those are, nor care about the use of prespective in that painting...just tell me the history and let me explore on my own!" We did get a short time to run through the city by ourselves, and ended up getting hollared at by an Italian boy. He was rather persistent. After Siena, we went to a winery up in the hills somewhere between Siena and Florence and toured the place and tasted the wine. Delicious! The best stuff was the extra virgin olive oil though. Oh! I have never tasted something soooo good. All in all, it was an interesting day...hot, tiring, educational, fascinating, etc, etc. Tomorrow we shall finally go into Florence and walk around there. People are saying it's supposed to 98 degress. I sure hope they are joking.