weekend trips

so we’re back from our weekend trip. it got cut a little short because of the rain today. friday we went to assisi. we saw the church and heard about st. francis and st. clair. then we went to peruggia, where we saw more churches, an underground city, and rode on this crazy mini-metro thing. we stayed in a pretty nice hotel on friday night. on saturday, we went to sienna. we saw the world's first public bank there. another church, with saint catherine. then we went to san gimowuerwherk, which was my favorite of the trip, even if i can't spell it. they make a lot of olive oil there. we saw farms and the whole place smelled like burning wood. again, there was a church, and they were holding some kind of market. that night, we ate dinner in a castle where they had a winery. we drove back "home" to florence last night. today we went to pisa, and were supposed to go to lucca, but it didn't happen because of the rain. another church, where galileo was baptized, and the leaning tower of course! i tried to take a picture with me holding it up like eeeveryone does, but it came out too dark because it was so rainy. then we came back to florence. classes start tomorrow. i have my first italian language class tomorrow. it's intermediate I level, since i passed the placement test. my speaking skills are pretty mediocre though, so it should be kind of interesting. i have about 5-10 words and phrases that i use everyday, but i'm excited to learn more so i can actually hold some kind of a conversation and not look so much like an idiot with all the nodding that i do.