Day 286! Ohhhh where has the time gone?!

Well, despite my best intentions (not really best efforts, obviously haha), here I am again, returning to my blog and all my faithful readers with my tail between my legs. Almost a month again since my last post! To be fair, not much has changed since my last post. May was a month spent almost entirely on studying. I must say, there are some really lovely things about Italy, but their university system was and is a terrible idea. Sure, at first it seems like such a great plan--almost an entire month between the end of classes and when you take exams, so much time to study! But ughhhhh, how I miss one solid week of finals like at IU. This whole extended exam period just leads to extended STRESS! I don't think I can take it much longer! But luckily I don't have to haha. My LAST EXAM is on Monday. FINALLY!!!!
Ok so had to get that off my chest. Since my last post:
Mostly studying:( I'll skip describing that, and move on to more interesting things...
BCSP planned a trip to the Tuscan countryside! We had ourselves a little bus trip May 13 and 14. Tuscany is GORGEOUS! It was soooo nice to get out of Bologna for a couple days and to just enjoy everyone's company. I really like when BCSP plans events for us because I tend to be really bad at keeping in touch with some of the kids otherwise, and everyone really is a lot of fun!
So, we left really early on the morning of May 13. Our first stop was Monteriggioni, a very small but culturally important medieval town. It looks like a fortress, surrounded by walls that we got to walk around on, providing an excellent view of the surrounding countryside. OHHH how I miss trees and grass, living in a city! haha We just wandered around the city and up on the walls for a while, it doesn't take long at all to see the whole town.
Next stop was Siena! What a beautiful city! (Just for you James Bond fans, Siena is the city at the beginning of Quantum of Solace!) Siena is famous for hosting the Palio twice a year. It is a horse race in which the 17 contrade (neighborhoods) of Siena compete for the trophy. We had some free time to wander the city and grab lunch, then we reconvened and were given a tour of the church of one of the 17 neighborhoods, Selva (forest). There we learned that it is tradition to take the horse into the church and bless it before the race! The symbol for Selva is the rhinoceros, so that is why I have so many pictures of little rhinos in my album haha.
After Siena, we headed on to our accomodations for the night. We stayed at Sant'Anna in Camprena, a former monastery. I've never seen this movie, but apparently The English Patient was filmed there! The scenery was beyond beautiful, the rooms were quaint and comfortable, and the food was delicious (to be expected!)
The next morning, we all hopped back on the bus and headed to Pienza, a city we had learned a lot about in our Art History class, so it was pretty cool to actually see it in person. It is known for being a true city of the Renaissance. Another beautiful, if somewhat small, city. Again, we just wandered about. One of my favorite parts was finding Via dell'Amore and Via del Bacio (Love Street and Kiss Street haha).
Then on to Montalcino, another hilltop town of tuscany. We were supposed to do a two-hour hike from here to a "near-by" church, but the weather was iffy, so we just stopped for lunch here instead and added another stop to our trip.
Our bonus city was San Gimignano. I'm so glad we got to go here, it is a really neat city. Once again, it is a walled medieval town. It's famous for having conserved 14 of its medieval towers, whereas cities like Bologna have lost most of theirs.
After San Gimignano, we headed on back to Bologna, and I headed (unfortunately) on back to the books!
May 17 was my first University of Bologna exam of the semester, Italian Literature. I wasn't satisfied with the grade my professor was going to give me, so I opted to retake the exam. That is the one I have on Monday. The only good thing about that is that I have already studied a lot, and now I know what types of things to study more based on the questions my professor asked me the first time around! I'm hoping I do better the second time around, because I want to be done!!!
Then MORE studying.
May 27 was my History of the Italian Language exam, which went TERRIBLY. That professor was HATEFUL to all of us foreign students. No one was happy with the grade they got. He was rude to almost all of us because we weren't fluent in Italian, knowing full well that we aren't native Italians. Also, since he let us foreign students take our exam on a special day, separately from the Italian students, he sees himself as being overly magnanimous to us already, and therefore will not let us retake the exam. Soooo there goes my GPA. Thanks, Italy.
Sooo anyway, that's about all that has been going on. The weather here has be absolutely beautiful, and I can't wait to be done studying so I can enjoy it! Only two more days, and I'm FINALLY DONE! This has been the longest school year EVER!
xoxo
P.S. OF COURSE pix from TUSCANY!