Siena

Siena is a fascinating town - and all of you have seen it. Just rewatch the first 5 minutes of the last (?) James Bond movie, "Quantum of solace". You can see Siena, its beautiful houses, and... THE PALIO! Palio is probably the most unique and emotional festival in Italy, a medieval tradition that has been kept up until today. It is a horse race on the main square in Siena, Piazza del Campo, which takes place every year on the 2nd of July and the 16th of August. The 17 districts of Siena compete (to honor mother Mary) in a violent horse race. The winner takes over the city... there have been victory parades about every night I spent here (and it's almost the middle of September).
It is one the most fascinating things I have seen, and you should youtube it or really rewatch James Bond, or buy a dvd about Palio - it's worth it, I promise you.

The language course has become very interesting, we now talk about politics and the media in Italy. In an hour I will go watch a movie, "Videocracy" (an Italian movie which is boycotted by the Italian government in a shocking way). Italy, to me, is not a democracy anymore - Berlusconi is in control of almost all of the media (using it for propaganda and manipulating people, of course) and president at the same time. Whenever something critical is published, he just doesn't put it on his tv channels/journals and prohibits any advertising. If you want to access neutral or critical media in Italy, you have to use the internet - reading journals or watching tv just gets you brainwashed. Very, very scary.
Especially considering that Berlusconi is not only acting like a little dictator, but is also a criminal (just consider all his sex scandals with underage girls, alliance with Ghadafi etc pp...).
I could go on and on about this, but I have to go to the cinema now.

By the way, my Italian is pretty much fluent now. I would have never thought it would be this quick, only after 8 days of language course.
And by the way 2, my roommate has arrived and she is awesome! But more about her later.