Anybody Want some... Pisa?

Yes, I know I spelt pizza wrong, but that's because I actually got to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa on Friday! I didn't realize how tall it actually was and another one of those things I couldn't believe I was seeing in real life! But, before I get too excited about talking about the actual tower, we actually had quite the adventure getting to Pisa...

It all began with arriving at the train station. I was with my roommates Emma, Caroline, Kate, Kelcie, and Liz, as well as my other friend Ashley, and we had issues working the ticket machine in the train station. First off, there are machines that take credit cards, and machines that take cash. Some of us only had one or the other, so imagine 7 girls baffled at a ticket machine figuring out where the credit card goes, even though there's only a money slot and vice versa. We did get it right after a few attempts, and we were all so proud!

After figuring out how to pay for our tickets, we couldn't figure out what train we were on. Kate and Kelcie ran to the information desk (where no one was even there), Liz asked the person ticket counter and they didn't know, and then someone who understood English said we were at train gate 1A. Now, the Florence train station has 12 gates, in which 1A was the furthest away. In the Florence train station, there is a train leaving every 2 minutes, and one coming in every 2 minutes. So with how quickly trains are coming in and out, there is about a 10 minute window for the "destination" info to pop up on the screen, what gate it's at, and what time it's arriving. So, if you're not paying attention, there is a good chance you'll miss your train! Oops, well guess what: we missed our train.

Apparently Pisa is a stop in the middle for one of the destinations, so instead of looking for the final place (which we had no idea was happening), we were only looking for Pisa. Once we figured this out and sprinted to gate 1A, the train was LITERALLY pulling away. I could have ran and touched it, but crap. All we could do was sit and laugh, being mocked by little Italian kids because I think they thought we laughed funny. Found out the next train left in 20 minutes, so we made a pit stop at McDonalds. Yup, there are 3 in Florence and much healthier than the ones in the US! They can't use most of the preservatives that the US has, so it seemed more fresh and not so greasy. We brought our lunch onto the train and were on our way!

Once we arrived in Pisa, we walked straight out of the train station thinking it would be staring us in the face, but no. Pisa is actually a decently sized city, not quite as big as Florence, but the only attraction there is the tower. We went to the city map, and we couldn't read it because of graffiti (believe it or not, that crap is EVERYWHERE and on EVERYTHING). We recognized a few guys from Panama that were in some of our classes and asked if they knew where the tower was. Of course they knew because they all had their iPhones whipped out with GPS and the location on there. We followed them to the tower, then they ditched us since they were hungry and we wanted to get to the tower. Through the town, over the river, down tini streets and then all of a sudden, there it was! I wanted to go push on it, it was leaning that bad! Even though it was 20 degrees out and there may have been 40 other people there, it was still amazing! There were even people up at the top (I was too chicken to go up there. So we took some pictures below).

Fun facts about Pisa though: construction started in the 12th century, and took 300 years to complete. Galileo actually did his famous bowling ball (or heavy boulders... not sure which) drop to prove that no matter the mass of an object, all things will fall at the same rate. The tower was built on soft ground and started to sink in the 14th century, yet they still kept building on it. During WWII the US was commanded to destroy every single tower in Pisa to reduce sniper attacks, but had to retreat before demolishing the leaning tower. That's the only one left standing. The foundation was fixed in 2000, and now people can go on top of it. See mom, still learning lots!

Spent about half an hour taking pictures outside of the tower and then we all felt it was time to head out. After stopping at a little restaurant of course! It had the cutest patio with bright red petunias (thanks to working at Cal's garden center all summer I can identify almost all flowers they have here in Italy!). We went inside, some had coffee, some had wine, and we split a couple pizzas. Right then we decided were were going to go to Lucca, a quaint little town inside a giant guard wall that dates back to the FIRST century! I had fun learning my history that day, but it's one of the few cities in Italy that still has its giant brick wall up that originally kept the peasants outside of the wealthy center.

Anyways, Lucca was the best place to choose to end the day. It was quiet, nestled in the hills (perfect for watching the sunset), and had so much history to it! There was a church built about every other century, and we went into Piazza San Michele that where the cross on the alter dates back to the 12th century (photo below). Another really cool thing about Lucca is the city's center, Piazza Anfiteatro, which used to be an old colosseum. After centuries of growth and no use, people built houses and buildings around the colosseum walls. So if you go see it now, it's a giant circle of cafes, stores, and a perfectly oval center. Because we had gone at a later time, most of the stores were closed up and we were able to do a lot of window shopping. Perfect for college student budgets!

By now it was about 7PM and we were hungry after being little Italian explorers! Found a nice restaurant overlooking one of the piazzas, and it was WARM! After the sun had set, the temp went from 30 to about 10, which is way below the average of 30-50. So we went inside, and thanks to our intro to Italian class, we were able to communicate with our waitress who knew no English at all. We were so proud, but rushed off to make sure we didn't miss a train to get back. Didn't have a ticket to get back yet either, so our time in Lucca was done and we were so eager and tired to get back!

Funny thing with Italian trains, is that they sometimes can break down, lose power, or stop working in very cold and snowy conditions. Glad we learned that lesson after waiting 2 hours on the train platform in 10 degree weather waiting for our train to arrive. We kept on getting notified of delays, further, and further back. Luckily we met a goldsmith who knew English and explained what was going on. "Sometimes, they will just cancel the trains all together for the night with the rate we are going," he said. We were all worried we were going to be stuck in Lucca for the night. We almost debated on doing that to not freeze, but thanks to Caroline's tap dancing and huddling to keep warm, the train finally came for us! We went inside after a while but they had shut the heat off. Our goldsmith friend ran inside, saying our train was here and we had 2 minutes to board. We sprinted outside, over some tracks to get to our platform and got on safely. What a relief, and such a story to tell. I just can't wait for it to warm up around here so waiting on train platforms won't be so bad.

After a lot of tea, a very hot shower (had to get the feeling back in my toes), and watching Dirty Dancing  with a giant blanket, we had finally unthawed and slept very hard. Saturday was a lazy day, and we spent sunday planning trips for the upcoming weeks and shopping at the central market and leather market. Only bought some veggies, and preparing for my next adventure. Next stop: PRAGUE! Can't wait to see what's in store for us next. Until then, much love, AF