Pisa & Lucca

Wow. Today has been awesome. Long. But awesome. The Villa put together a trip for us to Pisa and Lucca. We left around nine o'clock this morning, jumping on the #10 bus into San Marco so that we could get to Santa Maria Novella for our train to Pisa. Surprisingly, 33 out of 40 people decided to venture out with the group. After an hour train ride, we arrived in Pisa where we would hop onto another bus to get to the only real reason you'd visit Pisa in the first place: the Leaning Tower.

The Square in Pisa. Beautiful, no?

Anyway! Pisa aside from the three buildings you see here (a baptistry, a cathedral, and a tower) there really wasn't much to keep my attention. I ate lunch on the stairs you may or may not see to your left from a bag lunch provided by the Villa. After getting my fill of the tower, I wandered around the square looking in various merchant's shops to see what they had for sale. I wasn't particularly impressed by the selection and passed on everything. Disappointing, right? After we left Pisa was when the real fun began. We jumped back onto the bus that had brought us to the Tower and headed straight back to the train station so that we could hit yet another train to Lucca, Italy.

You should be happy that I didn't post or take a picture of myself "holding up" the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Lucca was a great, great, town. The part we visited was inside a giant wall. Pietro was telling us that we could rent bikes and ride them around the wall and the city itself. I love riding, so I decided to walk the ten or so kilometers to rent a bicycle.

Hey look! I'm on a bike!

Biking was absolutely fantastic. The views were amazing and the activity was revitalizing and made me realize just how much I missed biking back home on a regular basis. Only downside ended up being that I couldn't take many pictures of the city... because I was riding a bike... Well.. I guess I got a few from my bike, but it wasn't my camera. Kay had asked me to get a picture of her riding. I'm experienced enough, so I figured it wouldn't be too hard. Of course, I hadn't anticipated or taken into account the fact that there were about a million pedestrians in our way. So after about fifteen minutes of dodging, weaving, and balancing, I finally got a good picture. Luckily I didn't crash, either.

After four hours in Lucca (and gelato half way through) we hopped on our train back to Florence. After an hour and a half we arrived and headed back to Settignano to get pizza. It was some of the best pizza I have ever had. My days just keep getting better, and the people keep becoming more awesome. Love it!

God bless!

Settignano & Villa Morghen

We have made it! It was a beautiful day in Florence, Italy, when I awoke this morning. Fathoming an unpleasant day is almost impossible for me. The whole town has me in awe. Europe finally seems real to me; I will be immersed in this culture longer than I had ever imagined and it has me excited to experience everything this wonderful country has to offer. I just got here and part of me doesn't want to have to leave, even though I know that it isn't for another three months. So we hopped on the number 10 bus out of San Marco square and took the forty minute bus drive up the hills into Settignano. We checked in (Room 33) and relaxed, showered, and unpacked.

Florence from Settignano

Nathan and I walked around the Villa exploring our new home. Around one we had lunch. I was expecting a simple lunch with just pasta or something similar. Boy was I mistaken. We had a four course meal complete with pasta, chicken, fish, wine, and bread. It was absolutely awesome. There was a lull between lunch and the second wave of arrivals, so we relaxed in the room since we didn't really have anything else to do. Lauren arrived around four, so we caught up on travels and set out to explore Settignano and Florence. We walked for about an hour and a half. It was an amazing walk through a beautiful town. We just got out of mass at six and will soon be eating dinner at seven fifteen. Classes start tomorrow. It seems like it has taken forever for us to finally get here, but I'm glad to be onto Italiano and such. I have all of my photos up online, if you'd like to look through them I can send you the link.

I was looking through my pictures and I was surprised at how many instant memories and good feelings sprung from those pictures. My pictures from Connemara and Cong are now my shuffling background. I feel like in some of my posts, especially recently, I'm leaving things out. As much as I try, the inner monologue in my head is always saying more than my fingers can put into the keyboard -- especially after I'm done with the post. I'd love to go off on tangents about the buses, and the buildings, and the people, but it's just difficult to get it concisely done inside my head. Anyway... you might see some of my posts that are done earlier in the night updated with new information. So scroll down a little, see if something has changed, you might be surprised how much I edit these in one night.

Blessings from Settignano, Florence, Italy!