So, i have been in Siena for 3days now..(forgive my typing this keyboard is very strange) and i love love love it here!!! And that is probably an understatement... my host family is a sweet older couple. They make us awesome food and pack us lunches ... Italian coffee in the morning and yogurt. I have a roomate named Maura. She is so cool and sweet. She is from Baltimore we immediately clicked. There is another boy named Kyle from Alabama who is one of our pals. We hang around together... we call ourselves the 'A Team'... haha.. they are both pre med students. I really like everyone else though too... we have a group of 10 from all over the states. Very cool people... um.... for my volunteering i have been working in 2 different ambulance centers. its very cool. me kyle and maura work in the Misereccordia together and we got 'Italian' CPR certified and practiced using the stretcher. If our Italian gets better we may actually get to go on an ambulance call which would be soooo cool. All the boys here are ridiculously gorgeous.. oh my god. they werent lying...all the people here are beautiful. Ihavent really seen any 'ugly' people... Me and my friends have a ritual of going to the Piazza de Campo and having 1 beer. It is the equivalent of central park i guess. All the locals chill there and drink and people watch. We saw a group of awesome old ladies all dressed up sitting by the fountain. We called them the °Sienese Golden Girls°... haha. I took a picture... pictures will come soon... i forgot my cord at my 'home' today. We are taking weekend trips to Pisa, Florence, Lucca, a really nice vineyard with wine tasting, cooking lessons, picnics.... and we have two free weekends. I think we are taking a bus to the beach. There are so many hills in Siena... I am going to have awesome legs when i get home because i walk everywhere. its really not that expensive here either. for one 9% strength of yummy local italian beer 'birra' it is £3 which is about 5$... same as a bar and you dont have to buy as many. i just usually buy 1 and that is enough to get a very very nice buzz. a slice of pizza is like $3... its pretty awesome. I am learning Italian pretty quickly... Our host family doesnt speak any English really so we HAVE to learn it fast to communicate. Its really awesome... I am so happy I came with this program... today i woke up at 7 am and got ready, caught the bus, and went to work in Mike's garden for a few hours with Kyle and Mandy... I planted pomodori or tomatoes... very relaxing and sooooooooooooo beautiful. its almost tropical looking here... somewhat humid... lots of flowers. The green rolling hills in the countryside have splotches of red color. They are poppies... its like a painter flicked a paintbrush full of red paint onto the hillside... GORGEOUS:::....I am so happy. I feel alive... I could definatley live here.. perhaps i will come back soon... after nursing school... lovelovelove....caio bella