Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Under the Tuscan Sun, scratch that... Rain.

Once Anna and I arrived in Pisa, we spent the day in our hostel avoiding sunlight. I was pretty burned on my legs and back, and Anna was fried. Once it was save to go outside (overcast and afternoon) we made our way over to the leaning tower of Pisa. I must say, I know I've seen it in photos and am aware that this building leans, but man! It really leans! It is a lot smaller than you would expect, only 8 stories, but that building is just falling to the side. Anna and I took our goofy photos pretending to hold it up and then enjoyed a nice dinner together. We also enjoyed some frozen strawberry daiquiris to help soothe our sunburns. They were amazing and came with a free buffet of Italian food, what more could you want?

Along with the leaning tower, there are actually other build piazza: the cathedral, baptistry, and cemetery. Honestly, I had no idea about this buildings before going, but apparently they are all part of the world heritage site. Who knew?

The next day Anna went back to Madrid and I went to Florence. The plan was to check out the Duomo, obviously, and buy some Italian leather boots! Florence is known for its leather and I wanted in. I went to Florence 4 years ago when I visited Brian while he was studying abroad, so I wasn't as concerned with the sites. I immediately went out to see the leather market, once again in the rain, and was disappointed with what I found. There is plenty of leather: jackets, belts, wallets, purses, gloves, you name it. Just don't name boots. They don't have those... I'm assuming it's because of the season (I mean it is June) and the difficulty in sizing, but they just weren't to be found. At least not the cute boots I was looking for, they had plenty of worker boots and such. Oh well, I gave up and went to the Duomo and saw Michelangelo's David and went to Piazza Vecchio and Ponte Vecchio. They were all beautiful. My favorite, as always, was the Duomo. The green marble and simplicity inside the building are so refreshing and different. I just sat inside and relaxed for an hour or so. It was wonderful!

After exploring the city, I was becoming overly eager and needed to go back to check the internet to see how my Brian's attempt at flying standby was going. You see, his mom is a flight attendant for United, and that makes him able to fly standby for free! So, the plan was that he would meet me in Rome on Tuesday morning (the next morning!) and we'd stay in Rome until Monday when he would fly back and I'd fly to Greece. To do that, he needed to make a flight to DC, and then catch a flight to Rome. There are flights to DC ever 2 hours, but only 1 a day to Rome, so cross your fingers!!!

No comments:

Post a Comment