"Life is full of uncertainties so eat dessert first"

I just turned in my two papers for my Money and Financial Markets class. What a fiasco! First off, I spent the whole weekend working on papers that were due today. I would have had them done at an earlier date but since we went to London last weekend and had the Royal Wedding this weekend I had some distractions. But I got them done last night! The first paper was over financial intermediaries and the second one compared the European System of Central Banks to the Federal Reserve System. The second paper was kind of pointless because all you had to do was look at the information on the the Feds and ESCB's website and regurgitate it. Those papers are worth a 100% of my grade so I hope I did well on them. I feel like I have been working forever on them (well at least for the last two weeks straight). I am also pretty sure that my flatmates think I am a total loser because I have cooped myself up in my room but o well I needed to make sure they were good! I am not used to having my entire grade based off two 1500-2000 word essays. But anyways, Kristen, Tony and I met at Wool at 11 am and walked to the city centre library to print off our papers. There was only one computer available at the time so we tried to print off that. My first paper was sent to the color printer which cost 20p a piece of paper. Oops didnt want that to happen. Then my second paper didn't even print! Tony tried to print his but he didnt work for him either. I think it was because I ran out of money on my account to print things so it wouldnt let us. Finally another computer opened up and the person didnt sign off of it luckily. Therefore, we were able to print our papers for free... Sorry for whoevers account that was because we were in a hurry/ had nooo money. We then walked to the bus station and got on a bus (well we tried to get on the bus). Our bus passes that we bought at the beginning of the semester expired so we had to pay to get on the bus. The bus advertises that you can get a two way trip for 1.80. However, this is not the case. We had to pay either for a student day pass which is 3 pounds or a one way pass which is 2.30. I of course only had 1.80 because that is what I thought it was going to cost. The bus driver wouldnt let me on and so Kristen and Tony scrounged for money and some guy sitting in the front of the bus gave me a pound. I finally had enough and bought the one way pass for 2.30. Don't ask me why I didnt buy the day pass for 3 pounds because that is beyond me. So we got on the bus and only about 5 minutes later the bus stopped. The driver got out of his seat and told us that the bus was running low on gas and the engine could EXPLODe if we kept on going. So we got off yet again and waited for the next bus to come get us. Luckily, we didnt have to pay a second time or else I would have not been able to get to campus. We got to RGU and turned in our coursework with 30 minutes to spare. WHOO we made it! It was a weird feeling turning in 100% of your grade into a box without your name on the paper. At RGU, you aren't allowed to put your name on the paper because the teacher isn't suppose to know whose paper she is grading at the time. You put your name on this green envelop and then put your paper and the envelop into a drop box on campus. You can't email the papers either so you have to take a 20 minutes bus ride just to turn in your dang paper. BUT we did it! One class done. Two more to go!


So back to my trip to Italy...


Wednesday was our last day in Florence before leaving for Rome. It was bittersweet because we were going to go to Rome but I was also going to have to leave my family in FLorence. I won't see my parents again until I get back to the States. I didn't realize how much I missed them until I saw them again in Italy. Instead of staying in Florence, we went to Siena which is another town in Tuscany. We took an hour and half bus to Siena and I slept the entire way therefore I don't know what the scenery looked like or anything. I am sure it looked similar to that of San Gigminano. We arrived in Siena around 11:15 am and the town was full of tourist and school tours. I had no idea that Siena was so touristy. We walked to IL Campo Plaza where the city hall was. There was a medieval tower connected to the hall and the plaza was full of people enjoying the sun. Restaurants were full of people eating and people watching, one of my favorite past times. The plaza is home to famous horse races in the summer where surrounding towns compete ande everyone in the crowd standin the plaza while the horses race around them. We ate at a cafe in the plaza and I had spagetti bolognese but it was kind of cold by the time I got it.

Town Hall

Fountain

IL Campo

After lunch we walked to the Duomo, Baptistry and surrounding museums. The museum had a paneramic view of the city so of course Kristen and I went up. The skyline was Tuscany countryside combined with Sina City. The tops of buildings were rustic orange (hints the name Siena). I asked an English lady to take our picture and she was NOT happy with me. Gave me a lot of attitude but took our picture anyways.

IL Campo from above

At first I didnt really like Siena that much. It was really crowded and had narrow streets (kind of like Florence but not as pretty). However, the city grew on me once I saw the Duomo. The Duomo was absolutely the most beautiful Church I have ever seen. There was so much detail work on the outside and the inside (it's hard to describe how grand it was so I will just show you pictures).

Library in the Duomo

This Duomo was built before Florence's Duomo. Florence made their bigger because they wanted to be better than Siena. Siena was going to add on but got struck by a plauge and was unable to build more. We then visited the cryps underground and the baptistry which was also under the Duomo. The city was built on a hill so everything was built on top of each other. This baptistry was also gorgeous. The detail work on the ceiling was incredible. They gave you mirrors to reflect the ceiling to look at.

Mirror on the floor reflecting the ceiling

Baptistry

We went to St. Catherine of Siena's home which is now turned into a little chapel and church. St. Catherine helped convince the Pope to return back to Rome instead of staying in France. After her death, many people came to her home in Siena to worship and bring her gifts. Her once simple home turned into a beautiful chapel with paintings and other gifts. We then went to San Dominico which is a church that houses the head of St. Catherine (also her finger which they lend to other churches on occassion). THe skeleton was surrounded by paintings and has been at that church since the late 1300s! Both the skeleton and the finger looked so small.We got on the bus at 5:40 and again I slept the whole way home!  My aunt and uncle picked us up and we went to Michelanglo's look out over the city. I will make another blog just for this because it was breathe taking! We went to a really good pizzeria for dinner and I got a hot dog, salami, ham and hamburger pizza. Omgsh it was delicious and it had hot dogs on it! Yummm The entire trip my Uncle Rich has been talking about this gelato place near his apartmnet that we had go get ice cream from. We didn't eat gelato all day because we were waiting for that night to get it. We got to the gelateria and it was closed. WE HAD NOOOO GELATO AGHH! However, Uncle Rich taught us a life lesson...
"Life is full of uncertainties so eat dessert first". From that moment on I have been trying to live faithfully to that lesson.


Cin Cin