Birthdays, Museums, and Beaches

I feel like I need to post more often because otherwise I have too much to write about and remember, and it turns into a novel-long post. So I'll try to prevent that from happening.

Wednesday was Blake's birthday and unfortunately Wednesday nights are about as fun and exciting as they sound. No one was out, and a club we wanted to go to was closed. Strangely enough, the same thing happened on my birthday--which was a Friday. I'm still confused about that one. It was still a great birthday, I mean I was in Italy! It's not possible not to have an amazing time when you stop and think about where you are and what you're doing.

During the day on Friday we took a day trip up to Siena which was organized by the Villa. Siena is BEAUTIFUL, we climbed to the top of, something, and were met with a gorgeous panoramic view of the city. It was breathtaking. After that we visited the Cathedral at the Museo del Opera which again, was breathtaking. Our tour guide was less than fabulous though. She was the same women who toured us around Florence, but because we were with the Art History students who arrived on Monday she spoke English and was very focused on details I wasn't too interested in. So I unplugged my headphones and wandered around the church, marveling at everything to my satisfaction. After lunch and a little freetime we visited the Palazzo Publico, the government building in Siena that also houses a very important, very beautiful art museum. However, again, I wasn't interested in hardly anything our tour guide was saying. I would be great if I could wander around the museum, look at the paintings, read some information, and be good. Or having an interesting tour. We also visited a ceramics museum on Thursday. For two hours. The works were gorgeous, but if I ever see another ceramic plate I will have to smash it.

Saturday we took a day trip to Viareggio. After a couple travel-plan mishaps, we made it to the beach around 2pm and spent the rest of the day relaxing in the sun, swimming in the Tyrrhenian Sea, and collecting seashells. I decided to take the night off last night and went to sleep around 12:30 in preparation for today--another jam-packed day of studying for our test on Tuesday (our last one was last Tuesday). I'm looking forward to tomorrow, I have my elementary school internship again and get to spend the morning hanging out with local 3rd graders! So cute!

Ciao!