Pizza in Pisa!

It's hard to live up to Saturday's experience, but Sunday was still so much fun! We got to sleep in and had the complimentary breakfast, then some of us took off on a train on our way to Pisa! We hopped on a train and sat next to a guy who just graduated from a college in Seattle and was backpacking around Europe by himself before heading off to law school. He seriously is living the coolest life. He's been EVERYWHERE. He was listing all the places he's been and he's only been traveling around since April and will continue till July. All he had was a small backpack and the clothes on his back. Don't know if I could pull that off...

We got to Pisa and it was raining, bleh, but that didn't put too much of a damper on our excursion. What did put a damper on our excursion was that we were almost pick pocketed. We were just strolling down a street and there was literally nothing open, and no one was outside, except for this small group of 12 year old girls. They had an umbrella and kinda ran past our group, what I didn't know is that they came right back around behind us. I felt a brush on my right hip and with ninja like reflexes I swung around. I saw a taller girl and a shorter girl right against me and my purse was unzipped almost halfway. Luckily nothing was taken, same for the two other girls who were approached by these pick pocketing posers (check out that alliteration). We moved on with our day a little smarter and wiser about da streets and came upon the tourist attractions.

Pisa!

We saw the Baptistry, the Cathedral, and the leaning tower! Obviously we took the leaning picture, a classic. After that a few of us stopped at a cafe around the corner. Something has changed with my appetite while being in Italy because I ate an entire pizza and I was still hungry...lucky for us there was a little vendor right in front of the restaurant. As we said ciao to the waiter we walked across the road to the vendor to buy some pringles. A great after dinner Italian tradition...I swear.

A little off but still holding it up!

We headed back to the train and met another backpacking friend, the JMU alum! He graduated in 2008 and just graduated from the grad school for Audiology. When we got back Mary Katherine and I headed to the Bell tower, even in the rain we wanted to see the beautiful views of the city.

View of Florence! I think this was second from the top level!

We climbed 100's of stairs leading up to the highest point in Florence. I had that belly dropping feeling multiple times. There were four stops on the way to the top and on our second stop the bells started going off! I had the biggest goosebumps. We were looking out on the entire city literally right underneath the bells. MK said she almost cried and I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. It was definitely one of my biggest moments of realization on this trip. I just couldn't believe how many people there are in the world and how I have the chance to see bits and pieces of it.

Me and MK! On the stop third from the top!

Standing over all the lower levels! Creepy!

I'm king of the world! (or Queen of Florence?)

Both of us realized our cameras were dead heading up the bell tower, but luckily old faithful turned on a few times allowing us to snap some pics. We had to let her rest in between takes but she made it to the top with us! When we did get to the top we met 3 americans from Seattle who were traveling around Italy, one was older and the other two were a couple a few years older than us. We started talking about the earthquake and he said yeah I was in the hotel and heard it, and with these two on the other side of the wall I just thought it was them...you know how it is with those young couples. Well. A pretty awkward encounter but interesting nonetheless. While we were walking down we ran into some students from CNU! After seeing the whole city and realizing what a big world it was, I also had the sense that it really is such a small world after all :)