Making Friends in Siena, Italy

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Lots of people hope to make friends while on study-abroad. Meeting culturally diverse people is an eye-opening experience because you learn so much about other people and places. One thing I’ve learned so far from living in Siena is that a lot of people are very laid-back. In the evenings, I see people walking very casually and slowly, just taking in all the sights around them. I also notice that they spend more time in restaurants when they are sitting down and enjoying a meal.

I saw another example of their laid-back lifestyle when I had the privilege of teaching English to a class of 5th graders with two other Hope in Tuscany classmates at this elementary school we went to. The teacher was very flexible with the time we were there and encouraged the students to talk to us in English even if they were shy. She was very relaxed with them and treated them as though they were her own children or even just friends. The kids were all super excited to greet us when we came in—and we had a blast! We got to ask them questions about themselves and what they like, and they got to ask us questions about ourselves. It was really fun connecting with 10-year-old Italian students while speaking English, and I got to know more about what they enjoyed and liked the most.

Visiting the elementary school made me think about my language-learning classes in middle school and high school, and how I wished I had been able to be more immersed in the language when I learned Spanish. Today, I’m grateful I’m in the Hope in Tuscany program because we get to learn another Latin language, which I’ve started to feel comfortable learning after taking Spanish for so long. 

Being immersed in not only the language but the culture of Italy also makes it so much easier and more fun to want to learn Italian because when I speak to people, I feel like I’m making connections and forming bonds that (you never know!) could end up being lifelong. Even if you mess up and make mistakes along the way, it’s important to try and grow each and every time.

One of the interactions that really tested my abilities was my first choir rehearsal at the University of Siena. I went with one of my classmates, Katie, to the University on the day of our first rehearsal, and it took us a long time just to find the hall we were practicing in. We had to walk around the halls 3 times and up and down 2 flights of stairs before we found the choir director, who had come in through the back door of the building. She understood we were the American students joining the choir and told us to follow her. The rehearsal was in the Great Hall (L’Aula Magna) which was this big room with a high ceiling and rows of green, satin chairs. It made me a little nervous when we walked in because I really didn’t know much Italian, and everyone there was just talking away in Italian. We figured out the sheet music situation because this was our first time as a part of the choir and we didn’t know any of the music they had already learned. I soon noticed, in my section, a group of college girls who also seemed new and didn’t know what they were doing. They stood next to me on the stage, and we ended up talking because none of us knew what songs we were singing. 

As we were talking, one of the college girls looked at me, held out her hand and asked, come ti chiami? (what is your name?) My heart leapt because I understood what she was saying. I shook her hand and told her my name. I started talking with her and her friend in Italian about what we were studying and where we were from. Her friend was from England and didn’t speak much Italian, although she was learning it (a lot better than I am, I have to say) so we kind of talked in both Italian and English. I got to use the Italian that I had learned in class to communicate with them, which made me feel so proud of myself. I also had to really listen when the choir director was speaking because she spoke all in Italian and I understood almost none of it.

I’m very happy with all of the experiences I’ve had so far in Italy and I’m hoping to have a lot more. I think you can grow so much from going to a new place and learning a bunch of new things. As a Hope in Tuscany student, I think coming to Siena was an amazing decision, and I hope many people have the chance to go abroad and study in a new culture sometime in their life—you can learn so much!

Writer’s Bio

Kassandra Grinnell is a first-semester student at Hope College, on the Hope in Tuscany first-semester-study-abroad program in Siena, Italy, a program that seeks to establish the community of Hope in an international, diverse context. This is her first column for the Hope in Tuscany blog.

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