Siena 6

Saturday November 20, 2010
Time has just flown by here in Siena. I've been here for a week already, and have barely been on the bike. I actually haven't been missing the bike though, I've really enjoyed just relaxing here in the one spot, wandering around Siena and meeting various people, staying in Rosie's beautiful spacious flat. I could happily live in Siena actually. I think I should have done exchange during my degree actually, although you can't do engineering just anywhere. You probably couldn't do it at the University of Siena.
So today was another lazy day, although I did achieve some things. I got up at about mid-day, and spent much of the afternoon just uploading some blog posts, quite a job considering how detailed my posts are, and how many photos I put in.

Rosanna's flatmate Nani studying in the living room of their flat in Siena.

Later in the afternoon, I ventured to Siena's only bike shop, to get a new wheel. The bloke there could not speak much English so he just spoke in Italian to Rosie and then she translated to English for me. Rosie said he was difficult to understand though because he spoke very quickly and without pausing much. He also had a strong Tuscan accent where they clip their c's off. And he was talking about technical bike stuff. However the messages got across. He only had a thirty-two spoke wheel, whereas a thirty-six spoke wheel would have been ideal, but it was going to be too difficult to find one, I couldn't be bothered wasting time going to other cities to find one, so I just went with this one.

I got him to change the cassette over too, since I didn't have the tools for it.

Rosie and the bike mechanic in the bike shop in Siena.

Rosie trying to explain something to the bike mechanic.

The bike mechanic changing my cassette.

The wheel cost €38, which was much cheaper than I expected, and he only charged me €4 for labour and a new plastic guard that sits in between the wheel and the cassette. Maybe I got it cheap because Rosie was with me.
I walked back to the flat and changed the tyre over to the new wheel while Rosie went to the public library to study.
For tea, Rosie had arranged with Sam and his family to go to a restaurant. Sam's family were over to visit Sam for a few days, and will be flying back on Tuesday.
Anyway, I was tagging along to the restaurant with Rosie. She was actually really nervous because she hadn't met Sam's parents before. She was practicing saying a Dutch phrase meaning "how are you" and another one for "pleasure to meet you".
When we got to the restaurant, the family were already there: Sam, Stijn, Eva, Lise and their parents Bart and Merline. I just said hello in English, and Rosie did to start with too, then she gave her dutch phrases she'd learnt a go, she said "ik hou van vogels", and then "piemels!" to which the whole family erupted in laughter.

Dinner at a restaurant in Siena: Lise, Sam and Rosie.

At first Rosie thought she'd just pronounced it badly, but they kept laughing, it was something else.

It turned out that Sam had taught her a phrase that meant something else entirely, as a practical joke. He'd been working on it for weeks; he'd even typed it into Rosie's phone for her to practice it. And it had worked, Rosie had inadvertently told them "I like birds", then called them "dicks". And man was she embarrassed! As you would be though. It would have been an interesting way to meet your boyfriend's parents!

The restaurant was quite good, Rosie's Italian friend Lorenza had recommended it. I had a beef casserole kind of thing and some of Sam's steak because it was huge! And it was a really tasty steak too.

Dinner at a restaurant in Siena: Stijn, Eva and Bart

Dinner at a restaurant in Siena: Merline, Lise and Sam.

Dinner at a restaurant in Siena: Lise, Sam and Rosie.

Afterwards we went to the tea room again, and set up a game of Monopoly.

In the Tea House in Siena: Lise and Ava puring tea.

Playing Monopoly in the Tea House in Siena: Rosie, Matieu and Sam.

It's about the shortest game of Monopoly I've played, we each had about two turns before people were missing, forgetting who's turn it was, being distracted by drinking tea or beer. And we only had two twenty-sided dice so we had to divide each number by three and round it down.

Anyway, we packed it up before long, then Sam was demolished by Mo in a game of chess. Afterwards we checked out the Conix's flat which they'd rented out for while they were here.

In the apartment that the Conix's rented out for a few nights in Siena.

Then we walked home, I blogged some more, and went to bed.

Ride stats:
Distance: 1.72 km
Average: 4.7 km/h
Maximum: 13.5 km/h
Time: 21:46