Pisa and Lucca

This past Saturday, myself and twelve other girls hopped on a train to Pisa, Italy, then to a small town Lucca! My roommate Steph is friends with a girl who had friends going so it was basically a big, random group, and I loved it. We all got along really well, a few of them were actually from Texas! Love my state.

So we all met at the Florence Santa Maria Novella train station at 9:15 to buy our tickets and ended up leaving around 10. We got to Pisa and similar to what I'd heard, it's really nothing too special (aside from the tower, duh). I'm so glad I went and got to experience "pushing over the tower," but that's pretty much all we went to do. It's super touristy, but definitely worth the 7.50 euro train ticket. 

This is just a picture of us walking through town to get to the infamous leaning tower. I cannot talk about how much I love the buildings here enough -- so I take pictures. But really, I love how the streets are so narrow with tall buildings, you really don't see that in most places in the US. It's like that in Scotland too, so I'm assuming it's just a European thing.

We didn't really know where we were going, so we asked a local Italian how to get to the tower. He said, "Go straight, cross a bridge, then go left." The directions were pretty spot on actually. Anyways, this is the view from the bridge. 

For lunch we stopped at an amazing little Pizzeria. It wasn't on the main street but instead in a little backstreet, so of course it's going to be better. We tried to go in before we visited the tower, but apparently it wasn't open yet at 11:30 AM, so I took a picture in anticipation of coming back.

AND HERE'S THE TOWER! I kid you not, it's actually leaning. Hopefully you can tell from the picture though (look at the bottom of the tower).

No, I did not tilt my camera in the slightest.

It was crazy looking at it from this angle! The gated area around it encompassed the tilted ground/pavement the tower was on (I don't even know how to describe it?), so that was odd.

Gotta get my tourist shot in, don't judge.

I was super proud of this shot. Just thought I'd share it with you all. To the left is one of my roommates, Mary Kate, and to the right is Brittany.

This is a picture of most of the group! We had girls from all over: US of A (Texas, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina), Holland, China, and Korea. 

Heaven in a dish. This pizza was ah-mazing. Ham, artichokes, oregano, garlic, and mushrooms.

So in Europe you can purchase a beer in a McDonalds, which is what Steph and Brittany did. I'm pretty sure American's are the only ones who actually utilize that service (because we can), but that's beside the point. Not only can you purchase a beer at a McDonalds, but you can take it with you on the train. So again, they did it because they can. And because most of you reading probably can't.

Here we are in Lucca!! We hopped on a train from Pisa to Lucca (3 euros), a cute little town probably about two hours from Florence. And yes, that's snow.

Beautiful Lucca.

We got a snack at a little cafe, and as you can probably tell, it all looked incredible. It was a cafe with tables in a big back area (which is pretty odd for shops in Italy), so we all made our way to the back to take a seat. Right after we sat down to eat our treats one of the owners came up to us and told us we couldn't sit there. Looking back on it we should have known we weren't allowed to sit, because you usually have to pay a "eat in" charge at cafe's here. Still, just an interesting cultural difference nonetheless.

So that's about it for our weekend trip! It was so fun, I'm so excited to do more of those. We literally bought our (pretty cheap) tickets at the train station the day of our excursions. 

Again, I'll try to give a little recap of my week that wasn't documented with photos. So my roommates and I have been on top of our shit and have planned bunches of trips together, I'm super duper excited. I'll give you a quick recap - this Thursday, we're leaving for Interlaken, Switzerland for 3 days and 3 nights. Next weekend we are going to Venice for the Carnival, which is a 3 week carnival where people dance around the city and wear masks. That's all I know about it now, I'll be sure to give a full report once I return. And lastly, for my birthday weekend (February 23-26, 25th being my birthday), I'm going to PRAGUE!!! Jessica Helton, mah girl and roommate from Clemson, is studying abroad there so I'm thrilled I get to spend my birthday weekend with her and my two roommates, Steph and Mary Kate. I plan to blog about each of these trips, so stay tuned.

That's all I have planned for trips in the near future. For spring break, Mary Kate, myself, and my friend Meredith, who's studying abroad in Rome, are going on a 12 day excursion! We're hitting London, Paris, and Amsterdam. Again, more on that later.

So today I had my three classes all in a row; I go from 10:30 to 5:30. But it's really not so bad since the last two and a half hours are spent in my Wine and Culture class. I have to blog about it again, just because it's that amazing -- I tasted five wines today. I came home tipsy. From my class. It's the strangest, most awesome feeling, one I know I'll never feel again come May.

That's all I can think of for now. I know I keep apologizing for the length, but there's really no way to shorten it. So, I'm sorry friends.

Lots of love from Firenze,

Julie