Over the Weekend

September 2, 2011 (continued)

Let’s see if I can figure out where I left off. Ah yes, after we sat in the air conditioning for a little while, Franzi and I headed to the Wind store (like a Verizon store) to see if we could get an internet key so we could get internet in our home. We’ll see how it works! If it doesn’t work, they did tell us that we could return it so that’s good. On our way home, we got gelato and I got this incredible chocolate chip cookie gelato. We then headed home on the bus. Once we got home, we turned on the Book of Mormon soundtrack, sang along and packed some of our stuff for the weekend. At 8:00 we were called to dinner, as per usual. Tonight we began with a sort of creamy vegetable soup that was very good. For our main course we had zucchini flower which was absolutely incredibly DELICIOUS! I hope she makes that again :) For dessert, we had a lovely fresh fruit salad, which is always a wonderful way to end a meal. After dinner, we listened to some more of the Book of Moron, packed some more, and did our best to go to bed early.

September 3, 2011

This morning I had to get up at 6:30 to shower, finish packing, eat breakfast and make the bus so we could meet at the train station at 8:00. Our entire group caught the train to Pisa at around 8:30 and we were on our way. We arrived around 10:00 and took a walk through the city, ending up at the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Baptistery and the Cathedral. It was so weird and incredible to see the Leaning Tower in person. It looks so fake, like it was built to be leaning and look so funny. Like something they may have built in Las Vegas. But there it is. And, in case you didn’t know, they have now made it so that it will lean no longer. In fact, when they fixed the foundation, it leaned back the correct way one whole centimeter! After the tower, we went into the baptistery, which is a large, circular, stand-alone building. It is very intricate and beautiful. While we were inside, they demonstrated that, whenever something is sung in there, the echo comes back in perfect thirds. So the echo sounds like there are three people echoing in perfect thirds. It was so incredible. I wished I could have sung there. After that, we went into the cathedral, which was huge and brilliantly intricate and stunning. Everything is so precise and intricate; it’s incredible that people so long ago were able to make something like that. And every little thing has so much meaning. They put thought into every little thing. After the cathedral, we headed next door to a kind of courtyard where people were buried (I am forgetting the exact name at the moment…no, not a graveyard).

After that, we were free to do what we pleased. Franzi, Willi, Cleo, Lucie, Becca and I headed back to the train station and got on the train to Monterosso al Mare in Cinque Terra. The train ride took a little over an hour and, the last ten minutes of that ride allowed us to see glimpses of the sea, which was BEAUTIFUL. We got off the train and headed out of the station and found ourselves facing the incredible Mediterranean. It was stunning. It was incredibly hot and humid outside so we were definitely ready to head to the beaches (which were filled with people) but we went to find our hotel first. We found it without much trouble and it was beautiful with a beautiful view of the little town and out to the sea. We quickly dropped off our stuff, got into our swimsuits, lathered on the sunscreen and headed down to the beach. The water was cold at first but warmed up once you were in it for a while. WHAT an incredible place it was. The water glimmers between dark blue and Caribbean blue and the rocky hills loom above. So stunning. We hung out at the beach for about three and a half hours with Alex and Nikki joining us after a little while. Toward the end of our time at the beach, my lack of sleep began to really catch up with me and I started to feel faint and not so well. Because of this, Franzi and I decided to let Cleo and Nikki take our hotel reservation and head home that night with Becca and Alex instead so I could sleep in the next day and just relax. I just wanted to take it slow and not let myself overdo it. We headed in from the beach, changed back at the hotel, and all went out to dinner together in a cute little restaurant right in the heart of town. I had pesto lasagna, which was one of the most delicious things I have ever tasted. After dinner, Alex, Becca, Franzi and I said goodbye and headed to the train station. On the way, we found Katie, Rebecca and Jessica who were headed home as well. We had to wait about half an hour for the train so we sat down by the beach and watched the sun begin to set. We got on the train around 8:00 and headed for La Spezia where we would change trains for Pisa and then to Florence. However, once we got there, we found that the next train wasn’t until 10:45, in an hour and a half. We decided to head to the next station and change there instead, hoping there would be an earlier train. There wasn’t. We had to sit in the station for over an hour and a half and almost everything was closed. We then called Jodi, asking how late the trains ran, and found out we wouldn’t make it home to Florence until about three in the morning. So much for going home to sleep because I was sick. Basically, in a nutshell, we were glad we were in a big group and that we had Alex there to watch out for us girls :P When we got to Pisa, we had to wait another hour and a half for a bus that would take us back to Florence. Thankfully, a coffee shop was open until one so we were able to get something to snack on and wait in a safe place. While getting on the bus, we met some fellow American students, which was nice as well. We FINALLY made it to Florence around 2:40 a.m. and took cabs home. Becca, Katie, Franzi and I split one so it wasn’t too bad. When we got home, we fell asleep once our heads hit the pillows. It was a long day and we’re hoping we won’t ever have to go through that again. But we definitely bonded. So there’s the silver lining.

September 4, 2011

I slept through the night for the first time! I mean, it’s not surprising, but it was so nice. I woke up around 11:15, after eight solid hours of sleep, and had some breakfast. As I write this at about 1:45 p.m., I am still in my pajamas and have done nothing else but unpack my backpack, upload my photos, and write my blogs. I guess that’s more than I thought it was but my point is it’s a lazy Sunday. Around noon, Daniella and Andrea came back from a bike ride and now Daniella is working in the garden. We figured out the Internet key so Franzi is on the Internet right now and I’ll go on in a bit and post this. It will be SO nice to have Internet here in our home so we don’t have to lug our computers to school everyday. Besides, now I can maybe catch people back home while we are both awake! Hopefully it will continue to work well. And, since we don’t have wifi and have to plug the key thing into our computer, we can easily take it out and not let ourselves use it when we have lots of homework so we don’t have to be distracted by it. As for the rest of today, we’re not sure of the plan. We were going to head to the supermarket to get food to make our lunches for the rest of the week but apparently it is closed on Sundays. Our other plan was to find an Internet café but now we have Internet here so we’ll see. I’ll probably go to the park and take a walk or something after a little while to get some fresh air. It’s very overcast today so we’re hoping it rains a lot today and begins to cool down. We’ll see!

It’s pouring rain!!! The cool air is blowing in and it feels incredible. And I’m doing our first load of laundry. It’s kind of nice because we can do laundry whenever we want really so we don’t have to just pick one day to do it. We can kind of do it, as we need to. Also, update on the Internet, it is SUPER slow. So I’m thinking Skype won’t really work on it. And we’ll have to see if it works fast enough at all. Oh well. I guess we’d heard these don’t work very well. But maybe we can use them somewhere else in the apartment and they will work better. Whatever. It’s still nice to check email and such. Now I don’t have to bring my computer to class every day but I will just do it a couple times a week instead or something. We’ll see :) And we’ll also have to see if we decide it’s worth it to keep it. I’ll let you know. Okay, more later this evening :) Ciao!

xoxo Kari 

(I will upload photos later when I have a little more time. Hopefully tonight)