Italia

Half of our trip is over.
We went to lucca today. The train ride was two hours long so we were ready for lunch when wegot there. We had pizza then had gelato and walked around on the walls for a while. The annual summer music festivalis in lucca thisyear andtonight seal was performing. We gotreally excited until we found out that the tix were super expensive. Also the last train to Firenze is around 10:30 so if we had stayed forthe concert we would have had to sleep on the streets haha. Anyway we came back to Florence and met our new roommates from chile and sweden. Then we had pizza for dinner and went to see the new twilight dubbed in Italian. It was weird but fun…at least for me. Joanna hated it. Anyway, it was a simple butfun day and this is kind of a short post but it didn’t really feel like a short day. Haha. Goodnight.

Today we went to chianti. Our first task was to find the bus station ( you can only get there by bus). Then we had to wait forty minute for the bus because it doesn’t come as often on the weekends. I slept on the bus as I have recently been doing on all trains/buses. It was only a fifty minute ride. When we got there the first thing we noticed was a large outdoor market with lots of fruit. We got a ton of it ( I got grapes, apricots, this weird plum thing and a pear. Their fruits are small but really good. Then we went wlking in search for a park to picnic in. We found oneand sat in thegazeno there. There wee some boys playing magic cards there which was entertaining. Soon we got really fruited out and we needed some carbs so we went to a small grocery store where I bought breadsticks. Then we went wine tasting. The place was really cool. You buy a card and them stick it into machines which spout out wine. I really hate wine!! A whole lot. Anyway we also tried some olive oil there (with bread, not like the syrup tasting in gilmore girls) which was nice. Then we waited for this meat and cheese place to open (it was closed for the town’s italian version of a siesta) because it lets you try stuff. When itbopened though they only put out one cheese probably because it had just restarted up. Then we thought it would be nice to sit on top of a hill for a while and enjoy the view. I didn’t realize that it was actually a very small mountain, but I hiked up, following joanna, and got tons of bug bites. The view was very nice though, so it was worth it. Then we came back to the hostel an chilled for a while. Then we went our for dinner and gelato. Passion fruit flavor is amazing. We have new roommates. One is from Spain but we haven’t met the others. The girl from chile is still here. Apparently the tag of one of our new roommates bag says her name is nicole patel…confusing….we were thinkingthat she could be half Indian or adopted or have very non-Indian parents…or it could be some random coincidence. Anyway hopefully we’ll find out soon. Goodnight now!

We woke up planning to spend a comfortable day in the city. We had it all planned out. We were going to start off at the bargello museum and state until it closed at one pm. The three hour time limit would have forced us to pace ourselves our our lunch would have been perfectly placed throughout he day. After we would visit the Santa croce church and then we would spend the rest of the day shopping/searching for cheap places to shop. Bit after beakfast (of pastry and cappuccino) we went to the bargello and found out that it as closed dye to a dance festival taking place that night. Whaaat?? So we decided to do our last day trip instead to arezzo. We went to the train station and found that the next train was leaving in eight minutes at 11:08. Joanna quickly bought her ticket and then I stepped up to the self-service machine. I flew through the online instructions and put my bill in. What happened next? NOTHING! It was stuck. So I went to the customer care place and waited online for ten minutes only to be told that I had to go to the ticket office where the line us really long. But then she told me that I should just skip the line. So I did, and a bunch of people were annoyed at me. The guy was really nice though but I didn’t have the machine number sobi had to go back and get it. I went back and skipped re line again. The guy had anoter person Open up another window to help me. It oil a while bit finally he gave me a slip. I have to go back the next day to pick up my money. Whew…but the next rain isn’t for almost an hour and we had to meet the Italian family at 7:30. Well anyway there was nothing we could do about I now. More later!

So we got to arezzo and went to this place for lunch. I had the ravioli with tomato sauce. Joanna had wild boar whichvwas hard to eat because there were tons of tiny bones. After lunch we walked up a long uphill road until we saw a race path fenced off. I think there was a bike race going on or somehong. We went inside their duoma. I can’t remeber much except the stained glass which was gorgeous. The colors were so unusual. There purples and teals, probably because there were gypsies and things in it which was cool. Then we walked up more of the road and got to a park type thing with an amazing view into the valley below. It was the quintessential Tuscan scene. We stayed there for a while and thenheaded back to the train station. We were planningto take a 5:40 train to Firenze that would arrive at 6:47 giving us enough time to get to our meeting place in time for dinner. Unfortunately for some reason the train just didn’t come. There were a ton of people waiting too. We ended up on a 6:06 train that would arrive at 7:27. I had to call salvatore and tell him we would be half an hour late. He was of course very nice about it. We booked it to the hostel, freshened up, and met then at the piazza next to our hostel. He met us with his 15 year old daughter vittoria. She was very nice and goes to a linguistics school where she is learning French and English. She is only Niki’s age but she is very good at English. We got to their house which was very nice, and had dinner, all of which was vegetarian. Their21 year old was there too. Her name is anna and she is studying medicine specifically something to do with nutrition or public health. Anyway she was very nice too. After dinner the two sisters took us out. The middle one who is almost 18 was out of town. Anyway, the girls took us to michelangelos piazza with some of anna friends. From there you can see all of florence. The tallest buildings are the duomo, Santa croche church, piazza del signoria museum or something (where the uffizi is) and Florence’s only synagogue. Then we walked around some more, got some slushies, and wenthomearound midnight. We were exhausted but it was very fun. Ok finally all caught up…onto today…

First thing I’ve got to say is: I am typing this on a computer! But it is really weird…all the punctuation is in the wrong place..

Anyway, so today we decided to do yesterday’s perfect day. We went first to breakfast at the usual pastry shop. I had a pastry and a cappuccino :) Then we went to the Bargello Museum. The highlight was seeing Michelangelo’s first “great work.” It is a sculpture of the drunken Bacchus which I think is the Roman version of Dionysus. Anyway, after that we went to the Santa Croce, which is a church that houses a lot of famous peoples’ tombs. The unfortunate part was that the main altar and front section of the church was under restoration. We saw a picture of what it was supposed to look like and it seems amazing. The one cool part is that we got to see people repainting or “restoring” some of the paintings. They didn’t really seem to be doing much, however, so I came up with the theory that they are just paying people to look like they are working on the restoration, just so that the tourists don’t get too mad. After the Santa Croce we went to the train station so that I could get my money back from yesterday and so that we could get our tickets to Cinque Terre. I realized, though, that I had left my eurail pass in my locker so I couldn’t get mine. But I got my money back!!
Anyway then we went for lunch. The place that we wanted to go to closes at 3pm everyday, and we got there at 2:50 so the kitchen was already closed. We ended up going to this other place which was very nice. I had the gnocchi with tomato sauce because I wanted to change it up, but I have never really liked it that much. I did try Priya’s that day in Boston with Nick’s family though, which I had liked. Anyway, the point is that it was okay but not my favorite. After lunch we attempted shopping. We went to this market area where they have a ton of leather goods and stuff. Unfortunately, I suck at haggling, and now every storekeeper knows it and I’m afraid I’ll be blacklisted or something haha. So after that we went to get gelato at the place near our hostel that Salvatore said was their favorite of the “bridge places” (gelato places by the river Arno). We had already been going there which was cool. I had melon (which is too cantaloupey for my taste), chocolate, and tropical mix, which tasted like the passion fruit one I had a couple days ago. It was good. Then we headed back to the hostel.

Today I am wearing my I heart DC shirt. As we were walking back to the hostel there was a man wearing an I heart NY shirt walking in the opposite direction. There was hilarious moment when he finally realized that we were wearing similar shirts. (Joanna really wanted me to add this in here)

Another random thing is that Joanna has had a huge blister on her heel for a long time now. Today it finally popped. She had bought some batman band-aids a while ago, but they don’t stick very well. We had to go to the front desk and ask if they had any. While we were there, there was this hilarious british guy who had lost his receipt. He needed his room key and all that stuff. When he saw the band-aids, he wantd some too. He was like “can I have some too for blisters and things?” Then the guy gave him some and he was like “oh yeah and some of the dot ones too?” (Joanna wanted me to add this bit in as well. She thought it was hilarious).

So anyway, we had Indian food tonight. We went to Haveli. It is in a sketchy part of town, but the actual restaurnt is very nice and fancy. We just got take away though, because we weren’t hungry since we had a really late lunch. Anyway, the food was very good. I had a naan, rice, and vegetable korma. Joanna had a vegetable biryani and naan.

Okay, that’s it, I think. Tomorrow is our last day in Florence. Oh yeah, and Maddalena, the mother in that family, invited us to have dinner with them to meet the middle daughter and then go to the opera…wow? They are doing a lot for us….

Okay well bye! Talk to you all soon!

We are at an Internet cafe where for onehour a dayyou canget free Internet if you buy a drink. So I have thirty minutes to write as much as possible. I amdrinking a lemon soda in case you were wondering it is very good. So today is our last day invenice and our last day in Italy.

On our last day in Florence we started the day by going to see the accademia gallery. We got toskip the line because we had our pass. Anyway the accademia is
small andits main draw is michelangelo’s sculpture of David. It is amazing, andso realistic. Joanna and I were obsessed with the detailin the right hand. Then we walks around forence taking in the sights one final time andbrowsing the shops/stalls. We also had to get my ticket to la spezia for the next day. The first time we went we waited in line and then were told that my eurail was invalid because I had one date written as the first of septemberrather than the 31st of august. Apparently the man is supposed to enter all that stuff when he validated our eurailsbut he told us to door. The teller said that I would haveto pay 30 euros to get it fixed. I said no thank you, left, and changed it myself for free. We left andcame back later to get the ticket just to make sure I wouldn’t get the same guy again.

That night we went to a one act opera with salvatore, maddalena, and their middle daughter francesca. It was only one act, which was good because we were really tired and we had to wake up early the next day.

The next day was ci que terre. It is beautiful and really touristy on the beach andinthe first town. On the hiking trail there are way fewer people. Anywway it is really beautiful and thewater is really beautiful and sparkly. Each sparkle is really big and shaped like a star if that makes sense. Anyway we hiked all through the five towns. The last oneidls supposedto be really short and it ended up Taking forever for some reason. We barely made it to the hostel before seven which is the latestyou can get there. We got there with two minutes to spare. I was so tired by then that I went to sleep right away.

The next day was mostly travel. We had to take a ton of trains to get to Venice. There was one from riomaggiore to la spezia to Pisa to Firenze to bologna to Venice. Then we had to take an hour boat to lido where we are staying. Ahh like in death in Venice!!! Anyway these past few days we’ve been riding a lot of vaporettos. We went to two famous churches. Salute is famous because the venetian plague survivors built in thanks for their salvation. San marco, which is so incredibly touristy and crowded is famous for it’s incredible mosaics. We also went to murano the glass blowing/crafting island and the Jewish ghetto. We love Venice butthere isn’t a lot of sites, which is nice in our last few days. We have mostly been enjoying the bridges and the water everywhere! Ok well I have only a little time left so I’ll wrap up. Tomorrow we leave early, spend a couple hours in Paris and arrive hope. I’m excited to see if I remember any French after being surrounded by italian for so long. Today there these really cute little French girls on the waterbus with us. They had memorized the name of every stop. It was so cute!! Hahah ok time to goo! Goodbye Italy!!!!!