I basically met Shakespeare and Dante this weekend.

Ciao!

This past weekend was Rutgers excursion #3 of 4 to the region of Veneto and it was definitely the best one yet. We got on the bus at 7am on Friday for a 4 hour trip to Verona. The weather had been in the high 60's all week but of course the 2 days we go somewhere it drops to 40, so we had a rather chilly guided tour of the city. We were very confused when we saw the first stop...it was a pink Colosseum. Apparently around 1117 Verona suffered a devastating earthquake leaving the city in need of rebuilding. At that time Roman influences were so strong so most of the architecture was of Romanesque styles, hence the Colosseum lookalike. Right next to it was a building with the same front as the Pantheon, we kept finding more and more and doing double-takes left and right. The next stop on the tour was the Casa Di Giulietta (as in Shakespeare's Juliet) which I'm still a little confused about. I know "Juliet" didn't exist, but I think it was the house of the Capulet family who did exist, but Juliet was a made up character in the real feud between the Capulets and the Montegues (thats what i got from the tourguide who spoke broken english). We saw THE balcony, touched the famous golden boob of Juliet for good luck, and signed the wall of love on the way out. The house itself was much smaller than I imagined. I first thought it was cool to be standing in the same place Shakespeare had, then she told us he probably never set foot in Verona but only set the story there after reading lots about it. Bummer.

So on our way down to the river we stopped at a little church, honestly at this point after seeing so many gorgeous churches I don't even remember what it was about. (Siena's duomo is still my favorite) The river (with clean water?! - a rarity in Italy) overlooked beautiful mansions. Next was to the farthest part of town where we saw the last remnants of the wall which used to surround the city. There weren't very many specific sights to see in Verona, but walking through the streets it gave off a very authentic Italian city feel. It would definitely be a live-able city, not too touristy.

After the tour we had some free time for lunch so we picked a cute little place and were told to try their famous Spritzer (orange, white wine and seltzer - delicious!). They failed to inform us we would have time for lunch and I had just eaten a panini so I went with a gelato covered fruit salad, so good! It came with this ridiculously long, absolutely unnecessary lime green straw which served no purpose other than providing mass amounts of entertainment for five 21 year olds. After lunch we all hopped back on the bus for the Valpolicella wine region...

Nick picked a special little winery for us to tour and have a tasting at... a direct descendent of Dante, how appropriate! It was the Sergeo-Alighieri winery (they added that first name when the last daughter of Dante got married to keep the Alighieri name alive). We had a guided tour where they walked us through all the different rooms/houses for each step in the wine making process. We started out in the gardens, then to the bamboo drying racks room, next to the pressing area, then where they store it down in the humid rooms in vats, the second place where aging occurred in cherry vats for less time, and then finally to bottling. Then comes the best part, the wine tasting. We tried 3 different wines, all of different ages with crackers to go inbetween and cleanse our palates of course. It was so cool, the woman was explaining to us the differences between the wines and teaching us how to drink them. So not only was the the land and the view gorgeous, the old authentic italian buildings were quaint, but the wine was absolutely fabulous.

We hopped back on the bus headed for Bardolino where we had dinner and stayed the night/overtook the hotel. Like, literally we were the only guests and occupied every room in the joint (Italian hotels are generally very tiny). We got there before dinner so we walked around what was our first visit to an Italian beach town and went down to the water. It was a little chilly but seeing the boardwalk, (quite different from what you're thinking at the jersey shore) the palm trees and the water was well worth it. After walking around and seeing, yep you guessed it, the wall that used to surround the city during feudal italy, we headed back to the hotel for dinner. It was an alright meal, we probably overwhelmed the poor chef having to cook for us all. Afterwards everyone kind of split up and did there own thing and Nick and i got into a sangria making contest of sorts. It was fun, I like to think i prevailed as the superb fruit-cutter. Later that night everyone sat around (like, almost all 50 of us) playing a little "never have i ever" and just chatting. We all passed out on the early side, this whole touring europe thing is exhausting, in order to get up for venice the next day.

After a 3 hour bus ride/nap we walk out of the bus into the streets of Venice and... now I knew the streets of Venice were water from the books I read, but like, I walked out of the station and...the streets were water. It was the most bizarre sight but probably one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I saw a taxi FLOAT by followed by an ambulance wailing it's...boat sirens? It was so much to take in, luckily we had a tourguide who gave us a tour of the city for the first half of the day. The first stop was the newest addition to venice, it's 16 million euro bridge made of steel and glass which caused great controversy in the economics department of Venice, made very evident by our local tourguide. It was however, pretty to look at, the steps were glass and at the top we had a great view of the main waterway.

Next we were taken out to lunch at Taverna San Trovaso where we had the greatest lasagna I've ever tasted in my life. No exaggeration. They make it with a different type of cheese and barely any red sauce, it almost looked brown, but I'm totally getting the recipe. Segundo piatti was veal and french fries (again, I swear, if I get french fries one more time while I'm in Italy...) and for dessert - authentic tiramisu. After lunch we had some free time to walk around and do a little shopping. This was probably my favorite city to stroll and look in all the little shops. I know I say this about every city, but it really did have it's own specific feel to it.

We ventured back to Piazza San Marco and walked through La basilica di San Marco, it was over 1000 years old and every thing inside was mosaiced. It was gorgeous and huge...and...a...church. After we walked down to the water and took lots of pictures and looked out at all the other islands. Venice is made up of about 118 small islands surrounded by marshy causeways. Gondolas used to be the main source of transportation between these, but they seem to be moving more towards motored boats, how boring.

After our free time we had to meet back at the train station where we took a train to a nearby town, hopped back on our bus, and had about a 3 hour ride back to Florence. I loved the trip, I would definitely go back to at least Venice and I think winery touring/tasting could definitely be a new hobby of mine! As for the title of this entry (basically meeting Dante and Shakespeare) it's just so incredible to think that I could've been standing in the exact same spot that someone so remarkably intelligent, creative and well-known once was. Most of these famous figures who I've had some type of a involvement with since I've been here were seen so unorthodox because they were the first to try their new respective styles, but look at their legends now. This is definitely one experience I could not have gotten in New Brunswick, New Jersey...

Pics:

09-03-20 Venetto

Ireland!

Hello lads!

Just returned from Ireland (Wed-Sun) and had a fantastic time! We stayed with our roommie from Rutgers (Jacquie) and it was so nice having a "real home" to come back to exhausted every night. We literally came with just a backpack, 5 days of...life for 4 girls in 4 backpacks, quite amusing. Jacq and her rommates have a legit house with a living room, 2 floors, many jail-less bedrooms, a redone kitchen and the nicest roommates ever. Not to mention we got to spend 5 days with Jacq!

So we got in Wednesday night and first stop was of course a pub. We went to Oliver St. John Gogary Pub and had our first Guinness in the homeland. Okay, slight exaggeration, everyone got a Guinness because they felt they needed to pay their homage to Ireland/St. Patrick's day, and Jacq and I enjoyed a much lighter beer, Smitticks. There was an old man band playing pub songs and the atmosphere was just so jolly, like something I've never experienced before. We made friends with some clearly inebriated Irish lads, it only made the night more fun. We headed back after a few hours to get a good night's sleep for hiking the next day.

Thursday morning we got an early start for hiking in the Wickalow mountains. We stopped for BAGEL SANDWICHES (<3home<3) on the way to the bus and loved every bite. The ride was about 45 minutes from Dublin and dropped us off at the beginning of the "Wickalow Way." We hiked through Wickalow National Park and ended up in the town of Glendalough. The countryside was so gorgeous, and it's true, I saw more shades of green than I ever could've ever imagined existed. We also saw some sheep, horses, puppies, adorable old Irish grandparents and many other gorgeous natural sights. We were spent on the ride back so we all took a nap, showered up, and got ready for our first Irish meal. Off to Sheehans for some authentic Irish dinner, they had Guinness pies, meat & potato everything, lots of curry dishes?, fish & chips, basically all of the essentials. Since we had a Guinness the night before we opted for the Jameson & Coke tonight. The meal was delicious but we were stuffed so we sat around and chatted for quite some time. I just loved sitting there A. with my friends (Jill, Jacquie, Morgan and Jen) and B. taking in the overly friendly Irish, hearing the live music (more pub songs) and admiring the adorable pub decor. Once we digested enough to go out dancing we made our way to Messer-McGuires Bar and danced the night away. We encountered an interesting, what we think was a birthday party where we found plastic handcuffs, a blowup doll and some other interesting paraphernalia. Never a dull moment in Ireland! The old man DJ soon became our good friend as we were requesting songs left and right, anything from Lady GaGa to Build Me Up Buttercup. Needless to say, we had a wicked awesome time.

Friday morning we went out for a typical Irish breakfast at Sophie's cafe. It was delicious, sunny side up eggs, sausage (with spices i've never tasted before), bacon (but more like pieces of thick ham) and these baked beans in a tomato sauce. After, Jacquie gave us a personal walking tour of the city of Dublin. It is such a cool city with a mix of very old and very modern attractions, however it was probably ten times cooler because everything was hustle-bustle and decorated for St. Patrick's day. We hit the main attractions, St. Patrick's Cathedral and it's courtyard which had more flowers in bloom in March than I've ever seen anywhere in the USA. Walked along the river, saw all the major pubs, the spire (the 390 ft. stainless steel tower in the center of O'Connell street). We walked along the main streets and stopped in some fun stores which were of course decorated for St. Patrick's day. There were people out in the squares playing music, even a comedian who picked on us for being American, of course. Everyone on the streets and in the stores were so so friendly, oh, and the all spoke English! On the way back we stopped at...McDonald's for the ever so famous March Shamrock shakes...in Ireland. I don't like them so I got a McFlurry, but it was quite an experience going to a McDonald's in Ireland. Friday night was interesting. We got back, ate some dinner at the house and brought Morgan to the bus stop for the airport because her boyfriend was coming Saturday. To make a long story short, she got to the terminal at exactly 47 minutes until the flight (Ryanair says you need to check in only 45 minutes early) and they wouldn't let her on. We didn't know thise so we're sitting in the living room a good 2 hours later and Morgan storms back into the house. She had to buy another ticket which left for Rome at 6am Saturday morning, so obviously we had to go out drinking to cheer her up. There's a slight possibility she may have made the flight if she hadn't stopped to buy some authentic shepherds pie mix on the way, but I guess we'll never know. I have to say, she made it for dinner yesterday night and it was delicious. I don't know if it was worth the extra $175 she had to pay for a new ticket... but it was a great experience!

Saturday we slept in and spent the morning lounging with all the roommies. Eventually we made it out to Stephen's Greene and sat in the sun, people watched and wrote a few postcards. Walked around town a little more, did Merrion square, bought a few souvenirs and just enjoyed the city. Apparently in Dublin they stop serving dinner around 5 which didn't help our hungry stomachs at 8 when we were looking for dinner. (They close at 5 because they assume nobody eats dinner since Guinness can basically fill you up enough, and the Irish don't need to eat before drinking anyway) We ended up going to Captain America's (i know... but you gotta do what you gotta do) and had burgers. It was delicious and a really fun "Americanized" place, but don't worry we went to a great Irish place after. We went to Purty Kitchen, Jacq's favorite place to go dancing, and had so so so much fun. The bottom floor had a live band and the top floor had a DJ. Danced our pants off until the wee hours of the morning, the Irish way.

Sunday came so fast and we decided we needed to do one more Irish thing before we left that night. We chose touring the Guinness factory and were very happy with that decision. The museum-y part was shaped like a pint glass and walked you through the different floors which told you each step in the brewing process. Everything was so high-tech and they accompanied it with the history of Arthur Guinness and his beer, showing all of the quirky old ads. It was really interesting! When we got to the top floor there was a gravity bar which overlooked all of Dublin and they gave you a free pint of Guinness. Not going to lie, I don't love it, but I must say it did taste much better having it fresh from there.

We got back to Jacq's and had to repack ALL of our stuff, including the new things we bought, into our tiny little backpacks. We stopped for dinner on the way at another great Irish place and got an Irish coffee to prepare us for the trip. We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare because we couldn't afford missing class due to a Morgan-esque incident. It was good though, caught up on some Dante reading in the airport and tearfully got on the plane to come back to Italy. Oh my life is sooo rough. I have to say though, it was so nice being in an English speaking country. I didn't realize until I woke up from the bus back into Italy and my little Italian headache returned from having to constantly translate every sign I see here. It just felt like the people were so much nicer to us, maybe because we weren't obnoxious poor-speaking students who just frustrate the locals here. Perhaps too it's because they're always drunk there, or maybe we just needed a little break form the harsher Italians. Whatever the case is, we had a fantastic trip and I'm only half kidding, I'm happy to be back here. I have to say though, I would absolutely love to go back and see the rest of Ireland, we only got a taste of what it has to offer.

We couldn't quite stay for St. Patrick's Day, so we went to the Dublin Pub in Florence to celebrate. They had green beer and we had a great time. It wasn't quite like Ireland, but don't worry, we practiced our new Irish accents while we were there. I don't think the holiday is very big here, mostly Americans in the bar, but that didn't impeded on our fun.

Next up: Rutgers excursion #3: Venetto. We'll be visiting Verona, Bardolino, Valpolicella for a winery tour and Venice!

09-03-15 Ireland!

Fiesole

Fiesole, pronounced "Fee uhh sole lay" is said to have "heavenly" sights in some guidebooks we read.

We slept in on Saturday and got off to a leisurely start. Sensing a pattern here?? When in Italy... one behaves as a slow moving, relaxed, stress-free Italian. We figured out the Florence bus system and hopped on for a 20 minute ride up the cliffs of Tuscany. We got off towards the top and literally just walked around the town for a few hours. We found lots of scenic overlooks which were gorgeous to just sit and look off and take tons of pictures. There was a little park at the top near a school which was fun to walk around there. It was a gorgeous day, sunglasses were a must and finally, a coat was not. The weather is supposed to start to break this week... good thing I'm going to Ireland where it's 45. There's no escaping this cold!

So we walked across the town at the top and assumed the road we chose would lead us back to where we came from. The whole time we were joking (but secretly stressing) that if it didn't we would have to walk ALL the way back up this gianormous hill...think roads over cliffs. The walk down was gorgeous, it cut around the edge of the town so there were sights and villas thats you only see in the movies. We were in luck, the road let us right back to the piazza where the bus dropped us off. We decided to walk halfway down the hill instead of catching the bus there to see more of the town. It was so steep walking down, I couldn't imagine walking up the hill. We took our time coming down, again admiring villas and cliffs, and eventually caught the bus into town.

When we got back to our apartment we all sat down and looked at our gorgeous pictures and caught up on some emails. We went out to a little pub we've been eyeing for dinner and got hamburgers and birra (silly Americans). I had an Italian beer because it was the only non-basically-black beer, and I liked it. I got the Messicano burger (jalapenos and formaggio (cheese)) I know, quite the eclectic mix, but it was fantastic. Manola said the only time Italian's drink beer is when they eat pizza. We decided to extend that pizza exception over to American hamburgers, even though I got a Mexican one...ehhh, minor details. So after that we checked out the Dublin Pub because that's where we want to go for St. Patty's day. We loved it, it was adorable and so quaint, perhaps the new favorite.

Classes all this week, leaving for Ireland Wednesday night until Sunday to visit Jacquie!! (roomie from rutgers) So no updates until at least next Tuesday. Don't miss me too much :)

Fiesole pictures:

09-04-07 Fiesole

San Gimignano and Siena

Bongiorno!

Yesterday was Rutgers excursion #2 and they took us to San Gimignano and Siena for what was one of my favorite trips yet. We started out the day at 8:30 for a little over an hour busride to San Gimignano. The town is famous for it's medieval architecture, many towers, filming of quite a few movies (Tea With Mussoulini, Where Angels Fear to Tread...) oh, and white wine. Out of all of the towns I've been to so far, this one was definitely one of my top favorites, it had a different feel than any of the others, it was gorgeous, relaxed, antique yet modern and had so many panoramic sights overlooking Tuscany. Photo warning #1: i took way too many pictures off the cliffs.

Our tour began at the bottom of a hill, where we had to walk up a very steep incline to get to the entrance of the town. The entrance was reminiscent of a fort entrance which we found out is in fact what it was, during the medieval ages in feudal Italy it served as protection. The street we entered on, which was the main street of the town, was Via Francigena. This street crosses through Italy, France, Switzerland, and England connecting Canterbury and Rome for Catholic pilgrimages to the Vatican. Needless to say, it's a very long street. Duh Jes. Anyway, the main drag housed tons of little, adorable, home-y shoppes that we enjoyed looking in. Our first stop was the town's oldest church. Today the facade is still there but it has been turned into....dum dum dum...a little, adorable, home-y shoppe that sold wine.

As we were walking along we saw a few towers, there are only 14 left after about 60 of them had been destroyed or taken down due to war or urban renewal (tehe, thats public health). We stopped in the famous Piazza del Cisterna which houses the "world champion gelato" I couldnt quite get it at 1045am before even having coffee yet. So Jill and Morgan tried it and loved it while Jen and I enjoyed it's neighbor cafe's cappuccino.

Next we saw San Gimignano's duomo (main church) which was nothing to write home about. The cool thing about it was that it is one of the only duomos to not have a main one front door. This is because once the Via Francigena came through they decided to turn the church around so it's front was on the main street. There is something about destroying the back wall where the altar once was in a church, so they saved that wall calling it holy and put doors to the left and right of it. This also served as the separate women's and men's entrances during the period when men and women had to sit on separate sides of churches.

After that we walked up another huge hill which lead to yet another panoramic view of Tuscany. So. beautiful. Jen and I literally sat there for 40 minutes (we were given free time) just looking out, occasionally formulating thoughts. A bunch of the guys took off their shirts and were "sun bathing." Needless to say we all enjoyed FINALLY seeing the sun and feeling it's warmth. I could barely stand to take off my coat, but I did to feel the sun on my frigid Florentine bones.

Next was lunch, they took us out to this great restaurant, thanks Rutgers! I mean, mom and dad! They gave us pasta bolognese (without the redsauce, much better) then chicken and home made french fries (I bet they knew we were American). For dessert we had a tart with fruity jam, needless to stay we were stuffed. They gave us their famous San Gimignano white wine which was my favorite white wine I've ever tasted.

After that we hopped back on the bus for Siena. On the way we stopped at this really cool little commune that looked like a fort. The town is called Monteriggioni and it literally has a fortress of a brick wall (built in 1212) around the city of 42 inhabitants. The main street (and basically only street) running through here was Via Francigena, the one that runs from Canterbury, so this was a stop on many pilgrimages. It was tiny but very cool and I think the reason we stopped there is because Dante mentions it in his "Inferno." So of course there was a Via Dante Alighieri (street). Also, there was this big well and one myth says it's the well Dante enters Hell from.

We arrived in Siena around 4 and were given a short tour of the very hilly city. First stop was San Domenico Basilica, built in honor of St. Catherine who convinced the Pope to move the papacy back to Italy when it momentarily moved to Avignon. The fact that a woman is credited with this was huge. So now, the biggest thing I learned on this trip: do you know why some churches are just churches and some are basilicas? I didn't... Well, to be a basilica the church has to house a relic. Yes, a relic. So, inside the Basilica of St. Catherine is...her head and her thumb. Cool?

After the Basilica we had a long and very hilly walk up to Siena's duomo. It was absolutely gorgeous and my favorite duomo yet. Again, this one was originally intended to be the largest duomo in the world, but construction was never finished when the plague hit and killed literally half of Siena's population. For that reason half of the duomo is outside.

Our last stop on the tour was the main piazza of Siena, Piazza del Camp which is huge and houses the Paolo (famous horse race) twice a year in June and August. We saw pictures of the day of the race and it gets absolutely packed. After being told a little about the history and the architecture we were given free time to roam. By then we were freezing so we found a cute little cafe to get some caffe and warm up. After we ventured into some stores, met up with everyone and got back up on the bus to come home.

It was a great day and I would definitely go back to San Gimignano. It had the perfect mix of a quaint Tuscany feel with gorgeous sights, and a modern, hilly San Franciscian feel. I hope we have more beautiful days like this and I can't wait to be able to explore more outside sights.

Pictures!

2009-02-06 San Gimignano Siena

Nuova classe

Ciao!

This week starts week 5 and that means the real classes begin. The rain has returned so that has put a slight damper on our excitedness about big girl classes, it's also provided us with way more bonding time with our umbrellas and wet jeans than desired. So Monday morning I had to drag myself out of bed for my 12:40 Italian Literature class, let me tell you, it was rough. Kidding. I actually was up at 8:15 because for once I got plenty of sleep! Loving the new schedule, no more language class at 9am every morning (I know that doesn't sound early but Jill and I were up at 6:45 everyday or else we didn't get showers, not to mention the 30 minute (walking) commute door to door). So where was I... up early, had time to get in a nice workout, shower and catch up on some things around the apartment all before class.

Get to class, perhaps I should reiterate that it was Italian Literature. "Tradition, Crisis and Transition in 14th Century Italian Literature." Quite frankly I'm scared out of my mind as I've never taken anything not ending in -ology. It's going to be okay though because Nick is the professor, right?? The first class was more of a history lesson leading up to the 14th century pertaining to the authors we'll be reading (headliners: Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio). It was interesting, most of the people in the class have a background in some sort of English or Literature, so I think I was a little less informed than most to begin with, but that just means I'll have some extra reading to do. He assigned La Vita Nuova and the first five canti of Dante's Inferno to read (totaling about 130 pages). I totally understood and loved La Vita Nuova (also Dante) and then I attempted to dive into Inferno. That was interesting. The left side of the page is Italian and the right is the English translation. So I read the English, it has an old-english sound to it but is WAY more easy to read than Shakespeare. At the end of each canto in the back is an explanation of everything that happened, I had to read each verse's, go back to the original verse to reread it and then I'd be like "OHHHH!" I almost find it fun, it's so interesting, the only problem is that it's incredibly time consuming.

Tuesday's class was European Politics. I love the professoressa, she's a native Italian but speaks very good English. The class is definitely heavy, it too will be a lot of reading and memorizing. Again, I'm one of two non-poli sci majors. It's not my favorite topic, but she makes it interesting and keeps me engaged. I need this one to graduate so I'm going to have to do well :)

After Politics I had Language class again, now we have it Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. I got another feisty professoressa and we're basically best friends. I sit in the front corner (there are 3 long tables arranged in a U) and she always comes over to me and we chat. I wish I could convey to you how crazy she is, but I definitely love her more than Manola. I'm liking that language class isn't every morning, but I'm sure my Italian will suffer a little. Elizabeta only speaks in Italian and I've been following everything, so we'll see...

Today I had Literature again and I seemed to keep up! Good sign. After was Language class and that's just fun, oh, and we get to practice our Italian.

Today (Thursday) I had Politics again which was good, and then Italian Cinema (which I do need to graduate, so don't think I'm not doing work here!). Francesca is the Cinema professoressa and that alone is fabulous. We're starting with Neo-realism which is the period right after WWI capturing "true life" aka no sappy, romantic, italian love stories. We watched "Open City" today and it was REALLY sad. The class is very interesting though, we cover all sorts of topics including Spaghetti Westerns.

Tomorrow is our trip to San Giminiininnao and Sienna, so stay tuned for pictures of that. It's supposed to rain all day so do a little anti-rain dance for me, per favore.

Pisa

So before you all even ask, of course I took the cliche leaning tower pictures. It was so much fun, and way more difficult than we expected. We slept in Saturday morning after exhausting ourselves between acing our finals and partying oh so hard at Nick's house Friday night and got off to a leisurely start. Jill, Jen, Morgan and I took the train to Pisa which was about an hour and ten minutes and set off to see the town. We had heard you don't need to devote more than about 4 or 5 hours there, but we wanted to find that out for ourselves. The walk from the train station to the tower was a straight-shot up one street, but it was full of shops and pastereccias so we stopped in a few and looked around.

We turned the corner of the street and then right in front of us, through some apartments, was the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Again, like the Colosseum, it was so weird how people literally live next door. It leans only 5 degrees, which is about 15 feet...but it really looked like it was a lot! The field of miracles, which surrounds the Duomo, Baptistry and Bell tower, was significantly smaller than I expected. Regardless, it was still fun to just hangout there and take tons of pictures. The weather was in the mid 60's (yay finally!) and we refused to wear our coats. Can't have all our pictures from Italy bundled up with coats and scarves now, can we?? While on the subject of pictures, I think I found another calling in life: photographing people in funny poses in front of the leaning tower of pisa. I got down, literally laying in the grass, and took pictures of all the girls because I got so good at making it look like they were literally touching the tower. Needless to say I was down there for a while, and strangers kept coming up to me and asking me to take pictures of them! Too funny.

So there were touristy things to walk around and see, bought a few funny souvenirs for some people (is it you?!) and enjoyed just walking around. It was a very clean city, the streets were wider than Florence's and it just felt like a very upbeat and happy city. They too have an Arno (river) and with the weather being so perfect, we took tons of pictures. It was so clear the buildings were reflecting in the water, I don't know if you realize how dirty the Arno gets sometimes when the rain stirs it all up.

On our way back we tried to stop at a Rick Steve's recommended pizzeria (our goal is to try pizza in all of the cities we go to) called Galileo, because he studied and taught at the University of Pisa, but it was closed. We were already close to the train station and didn't find any other places that looked too good, so we hopped on the train and came back to Florence.

Went out for pizza at the pizzeria everyone had been talking about which is conveniently located literally across the street from our apartment. It was so good! I got (they're personal pizzas) mushroom, tomato, sausage, artichoke and mozzarella. Everyone keeps asking, yes the pizza here is different. It's much thinner and they do personal pizzas more often than big ones. They don't leave you with the greasy tummy feeling American pizzas do. I really like the pizza here, but sometimes I do crave a nice greasy slice of Alfonso's pizza. mmmm.

So we came back and were exhausted. Plopped down on our beds and were excited to look at all of our pictures. It was a great day, we had lots of fun and can now cross another great city off our list. Next weekend we have another Rutgers excursion in Tuscany (San Gimignano and Sienna). We've officially been here for a MONTH, ah! It's going at the perfect pace though, fast enough to not feel homesick, but slow enough to feel like we have time to get to do everything we want to. Monday starts our "real" classes, so I'll let you know how that goes. No more getting up at 7 and fighting for showers with 10 girls at a time, yay!

Pisa pics:

09-02-28 Pisa