Orvieto and Pastries

Ciao!  Come stai?  Yesterday we went to a little town called Orvieto.  First we took a bus to the train station and rode a train.  Then we got off the train and walked to the funicular station.  A funicular is like a tiny train that rolls up and down a big hill to the town.  When we got there we walked around and old castle and looked at some views, or as my mother would say "sweeping views".  Then my dad and I walked into a giant well.  We went down a ton of steps to the bottom and then we crossed a bridge over some water and went up some different steps back up.  In all, I counted 494 steps inside the well!  It was exciting in there and a little bit creepy too!  There just kept being more steps taking you down and up.  My mom and sister said they didn't go in because my sister might have gotten very tired and maybe scared too.
We walked all over the town and saw lots of cats!  We got to pet a few.  Orvieto is a little bit different from Rome.  There are less people and a little less cars too.
We stopped at a really good pizza place for lunch.  We got three pizzas and they were all so good!  We got a pizza margarita, a pizza with ricotta, asparagus, and yellow tomato sauce, and a pizza with ham, olives, mushrooms, and salami.  YUM.

Today it is Sunday so every store and place is closed.  My dad, my sister, and I went out early to buy some buns for breakfast and we couldn't find any stores or bakeries that were open!  We kept walking though, and we saw a bakery that we pass a lot, one with a giant salami in its window.  That one was open!  We got four pastries.  I picked a little tart that had cream and strawberries, my sister picked a tart with apples, and then we also got one sugary donut, and one cream croissant.  They were really good.      
I picked the tart with strawberries because it looked really good and I like things with cream in them. It was a little bit too sweet for me though and I don't think I would pick it again next time.  I liked the one Eloise picked.  

Fun Italian Phrase: biscotti (cookies)  

-Violet 

Latin Word Parts, Stone Beds, and No Hands

Hi friends!  Ciao amici!  I am learning lots of Italian words.  I have recently memorized the days of the week.  Did you know that both English and Italian words come from Latin?  Like in my spelling words I am learning ‘certify’and ‘century’.  In English ‘cert’ means ‘sure’ just like in Italian ‘certo’(chairto) also means sure. In English ‘cent’ means ‘one hundred’ and in Italian ‘cento’(chento) also means ‘one hundred’.

Two days ago we went to a place called Cerveteri.  It is a place where there are big tombs all around and you can walk inside some of them.  We saw stone beds where people were buried there more than 2000 years ago!  When people died, the villagers built tombs like little houses.  The tombs were complete with beds and benches.  The villagers also used to keep some of the dead people’s personal belongings in there with them.
It was a tiny bit creepy, but it was very interesting.  It made me think a little more about death and what you do after you die.
A lot of cats were living there too (alive cats).  When we were eating our lunch, a little black kitty came over and he liked to eat noodles out of my hand.  He was so sweet!  It was also very pretty there.  We saw lots of lizards and butterflies.  Not such a bad place to be buried for 2000 years!

Today we are going to walk to The Mouth of Truth (Bocca della Verita).  It is a weird looking circular face with an open mouth mounted on a wall.  The legend is if you stick your hand in, and tell a lie, it will bite your hand off!  I’m going to put my hand in but not tell a lie!
Well, we gotta go start our walk!

Fun Italian Word:  “Cento” (one hundred).

-Violet
PS- another difference: taxi cars are white! 

Differences

Hello!  I am still in Rome!  Today we walked to a street called Via Di Pie di Marmo. (Marble Foot Street.)  We saw a giant marble foot!  It was about three regular-sized feet long.  On our walk, we also saw a big column that had a whole story spiraling up it.  It had thousands of little people doing stuff carved all over it!

A lot of things are different here in Rome.  Here’s a few:

Most people eat dinner at 7:00pm or later.

The ambulances sound different.  Instead of weeeeeoooooweeeeeooooo it’s waaaaweeweewaaaaweewee

At a restaurant, you have to order your water.  You choose either naturale (natural) or frizzante.(fizzy)

You aren’t allowed to touch and choose your own fruit in the market unless the vendor lets you.

A lot of meals have multiple courses.

All the streets are made of cobblestones.  

There are street performers everywhere.
Ok.  Basta.

Fun Italian Phrase:  Basta! (Enough!).

-Violet

Siena, Fake Domes, and Figs!

Hello again!
I just went to Siena for three nights!!!  It is sort of a special place because my parents studied there in college.  There are different contradas there (a contradas is a neighborhood) and each one is represented by a different animal or thing.  There are 17 different contradas.  There is the caterpillar, the snail, the owl, the giraffe, the seashell, the panther, the wave, and a lot more!   Twice a year there is a big horse race in the middle of the city, and each horse represents a different contrada.  It’s called the Palio, and it’s a really big deal, but unfortunately we were not there for it.  
On our last day in Siena we took a tour of the water tunnels where the water runs through.  In Venice there is a lot of water everywhere, and in Siena there is not a lot of water at all because it’s on top of a hill.  But it was still really cool.
One night we had a six course dinner, and my sister fell asleep during the third course.   Dinner in Italy is always really late.  Most of the restaurants open at 7:00.  

Now we just got back to Rome and we are sitting on our couch right now.  Today we went to a big church called St. Ignatius church.   The church wanted a dome, but they ran out of money to afford one so they had an artist come and paint a fake one on the flat ceiling.  There is one spot where you stand and look at it and it really looks like a real dome.  From some other places, it only looks like a flat painting.  I figured out on the map how to find it and how to get there, and it wasn’t very easy using a paper map!  But we made it.   In a book I read, it said the real painting was destroyed by a fire, and someone painted a new fake dome based on the artist’s drawings.

We have already tried a lot of foods on this trip so far.  Today I just tried a fig!  Me and my dad went down to the market to buy some fruit and there is a stand that has a lady at it who is really nice and who knows us by now and recognizes us.  Today she smiled at me and after we payed she handed me a fig!  How nice of her!
I think that’s all for now.  This is getting pretty long.

Fun Italian word: Fico (fig)

-Violet