Francesci!

Yesterday for lunch we went outside the city walls and had pizza. We each got our own huge pizza. I had one w/ mushrooms, ham and mozzarella. We talked to the waiter after dinner and he said he wants to visit America. He actuallyt has an uncle in Detroit! He said he was excited to go now b/c of the "change, Obama."

Last night we went to some bars. We tried to pick the local ones where no one spoke “inglese”. We went to Ristorante Guido. At the next bar we went to, I sat at a table w/ friends, me on the outside. Then three Italian guys came up to me and started talking in what limited english/ Italian we shared. They were three Italian men all named Francesco. We started talking about Siena, where they were from, what I was doing here etc. Asked where i was from and i said MidWest. I then held up the palm of my hand and pointed to where Detroit would be. For some reason, I have no idea why, they started talking about a movie in Pennsylvania they knew about. They said, it is about an animal and "dis animal is a weather forecaster."

What?

Me & my roomate asked if this animal made a sound. We told them to make a sound of the animal. They then said the animal had no sound, no noise. After a thrillin game of pictionary and me and Carol making oinks and woofs, one of the Francescos said
Feb. 2nd, this animal is Feb.2nd.....
Groundhog Day!

Yes, they were trying to talk about Groundhog Day. Now, I think I know why they were saying it. I had said I was happy to be in Siena, b/c Detroit was cold and I wanted to have - as Francesco said - "my grand tour". Maybe they were trying to relate the monotony I was feeling in the States to Groundhog Day?


Anyways, I have a picture here of the groundhog pictionary game, i'll add it later to the blog. It's quite detailed...
Once i said "Bill Murray", they all smiled and nodded and laughed. Honestly, although communication is easy when your all know the same language it is sometimes much more amusing when you have to work for the answers.

At the end of the night i left w/ a "Piacere, Francescos" one of them looked back and said "Francesci" b/c that is the correct form of many.

Piacere Francseci. Nice meeting you Francescos.

At Italian language class on Thursday, my Insegnante (teacher) Luccia Rossi hooked me up w/ churches to visit for mass while i'm here. She doesn't know any english so it was interesting when she was giving me directions. She wrote down an entire list for me of mass times and where to go. One of the churches she said, was where St. Catherine of Siena, the patron St. of Doctors, recieved her stigmata. On and in the Cathedral of San Dimenico last weekend, we saw St. Catherine's "preserved head". Yes, her head is "preserved" along w/ the relic of her right thumb. Another is were a miracle happened w/ St. Francis of Assissi. So i will try to get my butt outta bed on Sunday and check it out.