It's time to do me!: Leaning Tower of Pisa!

January 22, 2011

Today my roommates and I woke up really early to catch the 8:28 train to Pisa. Our teachers recommended we get to the train stating between 30 and 40 minutes before our train is actually supposed to leave until we’re comfortable with the trains. So we got there extremely early and saw there was a train to Pisa departing at 8:05 and were debating whether or not we should take that train and ended up deciding we would rather just wait for the train we initially wanted to catch. Well, 8:15 rolled around we aren’t seeing any train to Pisa departing any earlier than 8:53, and the 8:28 train was heading to a town we had never heard of. We ended up asking people and we got all confused and conflicted and ended up just waiting for the 8:53 train. We all validated our tickets, and boarded our very first train! It was about an hour or so train ride and was rather quite relaxing.

We got off at Pisa and made our way out of the train station discovering we had no clue where the leaning tower was located in regards to the train station. We ended up finding a map and this guy came up to us explaining where the tower was located on the map, and little did we know the guy was actually hoping to get money out of us so with a general idea of where the leaning tower of Pisa was located we took off in a quick trot across the street. It ended up being basically a straight shot to the tower and we quickly realized Pisa was a small town that was extremely quiet and seemed very deserted. We crossed a bridge which we ended up figuring out is actually the Arno River, the same river that the Ponte Vecchio crosses over. It seemed as if we were walking down the street when all of a sudden there was the church and leaning tower of Pisa! It was HILARIOUS to see all of these people standing on top of these short cement posts with their hands out either pretending they were pushing the tower down or standing it back up. Like literally these posts line the entire street practically and almost every other one of the posts had someone standing there posing…it was great! However, honestly that’s why everyone goes there, so we soon accepted the humility and started posing on the blocks with the tower. When it was my turn on the block somehow Marissa offered or was asked to take pictures of this one girl who seemed to be by herself. We got her all set up and posed right and started talking to her and realized she’s a student for the States that is studying abroad here for a semester as well! Her name is Kaila (of course I was happy to find another “Kayla” with a different spelling) and she’s from Arizona. She didn’t come here with anyone else from her home school and told us that her college here in Italy is full of foreign students who she can’t really communicate to, so she has been traveling alone! Luckily she found us and we brought her in under our wings.

We all went out to lunch (it was hard finding a place that was actually open!) at this cute ristorante. This Italian man welcomed us in, but when we walked in the workers there were eating lunch themselves and our waiter was in sweatpants. I guess we got there earlier than their actually lunch time, but they still brought us in and made us food. I saw this menu special posted outside the restaurant and decided to get it..it was a 3 course meal for 8,50 Euro…what a deal! It ended up being Penne al Bolognese (pasta with meat sauce) as the first course, a huge hunk of chicken, a slab of pork (or lamb?), and potatoes as my second course, and a fresh fruit cup filled with banana, kiwi, apples, and blood oranges and my dessert or final course. Let’s just say that my meal was definitely enough food to feed two parents and their one child, but of course I ate every single morsel! We realized that there really was nothing else to do in Pisa, so we went back to the train station and just came back to Florence.

Danielle and I relaxed for a little bit, and then headed off to English mass at the Duomo at 5. We entered the Duomo all bundled up and in jeans after learning our lesson the first time, but we were seated in a completely different section in front of a completely different altar. The mass only lasted 45 minutes, which we realized is probably due to the fact that they don’t play any songs, which I find highly disappointing. Danielle and I both lit candles before leaving which was really nice and sentimental (Danielle lit two and I lit three; one for Grandma Phillips, one for Grandma Snay, and one for Grandpa Snay). We thought there was a Florence Wine Festival going on which we planned on going to after church, but Marissa called us right before we got into church and told us we looked at the dates wrong and it was in November, so we just stayed in and I skyped with mom and dad and Joe until I realized I needed to shower and get to bed so I could get up early for our Tuscany trip!