Thursday 6.28.07

We visited the public library and it was very interesting. The library was built over a street and you can see the street and even the street signs inside the library. The public side was really nice because it had two children’s rooms and a room for movies. It also has internet access and by all accounts, it looks like a regular public library…but much cooler. There were Italian copies of American classics by Charles Dickens, George Orwell, and Agatha Christie.

The other side of the library has more reference materials, some of which can be checked out. The best part of the tour was seeing all the original manuscripts dating as far back as the 14th century. There is also a special room that houses all those documents and they are all carefully maintained. In many cases, there are handwritten, first editions of book from centuries gone by.

The library itself has a rich history, being over 650 years old. It originally belonged to a rich man, who left it to a university. Once the French came to Siena, it was closed down for a few years. When it was reopened, the library was given to the city of Siena as a public library.

In the afternoon, I worked on my slide shows. I managed to break them the day before and of course, I didn’t save any the project files. I managed to find a nice wi-fi friendly spot in the school’s student lounge. It was quiet in the lounge because everyone had pretty much left for the day. Since my laptop started acting crazy, I only have a limited amount of time before it overheats. So I had to work fast. The laptop did eventually over heat, so I went to the internet train to upload all of my slide shows and check my email. The internet train is very convenient, but I have spent about €15-€20 in the past two weeks.

Later that evening we watched the Italian version of 1 vs. 100 and I actually got two questions correct. I didn’t understand any of the dialog, but it seemed the same as the Italian version.