The weekend after Amalfi, my roommate Amanda's friend Erinn was visiting Florence. She goes to school at Madison and is studying in Copenhagen. She's a cool person and was fun to hang out with. On Friday, I went into Florence to buy a dress for the Opera that we were going to the next week. At night, my roommate Kristine and I went and met up with Erinn and Amanda who had gone out to eat. We had a little wine and then went to get gelato. When we got back to the villa, we hung out in our room and had a little photo shoot. That day was actually the first time we got a picture with all three roommates together--how precious! :) Then we went to bed some what early with the intention of going to bologna in the morning.
In the morning Kristine decided not to come and Laura said she needed to study all day so it was just Amanda, Erinn and me. When we got to Santa Maria Novella--the main train station--and went to buy tickets to Bologna, they wanted 20 Euro a ticket...we weren't having that so we picked a new destination. We decided to go to Lucca, a small city with its ancient walls still standing. There was a bit of a fiasco with me getting stuck in the train doors and a little public embarassment, but we got over it. Once we got to Lucca, we walked around and it was great--everything seemed to move in slow motion, unlike Florence. We found a little cafe for lunch and I had some pesto pasta. The best part of that was an English translation on the menu: instead of "coffee with ginseng" it said, "coffee to the ginseng"...menu translations are usually pretty funny.
Then, we went into the beautiful cathedral in Lucca where Amanda and I recognized some artwork and artists that we had been studying in Art History. We had an (intelligent) conversation about it...something I could never have done two months ago!
We decided to rent bikes after our visit to the church. You can ride on top of the walls of the city and go all the way around. It's a pretty crowded walking/biking path filled with the cutest old men. We took so many pictures of people and Lucca and the beautiful mountains in the background. We tried biking in the city, but there was a lot of traffic and it wasn't as fun as biking on the path. We went back to the path and eventually stopped to play in the grass a while. After biking for two hours it started to rain a bit. I got my umbrella out and rode my bike with the umbrella--not as dangerous as it sounds, mom! Anyway, lots of people thought it was pretty funny and many strangers were taking my picture.
After we returned the bikes (which only cost 5 Euro for two and a half hours--what a steal!) we wanted to get some supper. We decided on Chinese food, Lucca Chinese food. It was quite a learning experience. I don't know that I would repeat it...but it was fun nonetheless.
We took the train back to Sesto and called it a night. Sunday I got up went to church with Erinn, who I happened to run into on the street; she really had no way of getting a hold of Amanda after a phone situation, so this worked out well! Sunday during the day, I did some homework and probably napped...yes, I'm pretty certain I napped most of the day! haha
It was a great weekend! The next week was pretty relaxing. I had a required movie for my literature class on Tuesday night and we went to the Opera on Wednesday. It was so fun to get all dressed up. I had watched the movie version of the opera we saw (La Traviata) with English subtitles so I knew what was going on...sort of. Overall, it was a great night and a good week of classes.
Again, check facebook soon for photos and I'll try to put some on here after fall break.
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