Over at Tower of Babel blog, Janelle Renée — a Californian living in Italy — writes touching essays about life in Siena:

Siena offers free Italian lessons to immigrants. The classes are excellent, because the teachers are top-notch. The second best thing I like about the school is that it is truly multicultural. In my classes I’ve met two Ethiopians, a Senegalese, a Turk, some Romanians, a Brit, an Uzbek, two Russians, an Indian, and two Martians. (Martians are NOT to be trusted! If you don’t believe me, you must watch Mars Attacks! Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

Anyway, most everybody at the school speaks English as their second language, so it is fairly easy to communicate when our Italian fails us. What sets me apart from the group, other than the fact that Italian is my second-ish language (I briefly studied French some time back), is that I’m the only person who came to Italy simply because. Everybody else came to Italy for a better life: for work, for economic stability, and/or to send money back home to the loved ones they’ve left behind.

- Janelle Renée @ Tower of Babel: Link.

siena