The Leaning Tower of Pisa and Florence!

I feel like things never go as planned, but always end up turning out better than expected. I only have a few weekends left in Italy and I really want to make the most of them. I was planning to go to Florence with Emma and Diego this past weekend, but the people whose house we were planning to stay at fell through. :/ Emma decided to come to Bracciano Friday night to play beach volley and then, at least, we'd be together and could figure out what we wanted to do for the weekend. There was a little hitch in our plan when Emma somehow got on a train going the opposite direction of Bracciano (noticing a common thread with public transportation mishaps here?). I ended up playing beach and water volley. It was getting later, and I really didn't want to waste my weekend.

At 11pm, I called Emma and told her I still wanted to go to Florence this weekend and that I was coming to Rome as we spoke. I love the fact that Emma is always up for anything because she agreed before I had finished my explanation! Marcos drove me from Bracciano to a metro near his house in Rome, and I caught the last metro heading to Emma's. We got to bed around 2 and woke up at 5:10 the next morning so that we could catch the first metro to Termini (main train station) and then caught a train from there to Pisa. Regardless of the fact that we actually ran to the metro station, we still missed the first one, but caught the next ten minutes later. We are making quite a habit out of running everywhere we go; my gym workouts may have been lacking since I've been in Italy, but I try to make up for that by running to and through the metro and train stations! We caught the train to Pisa with time to spare, and by time, I mean 2 minutes...but that still counts, eh? We slept a little, ate, changed and got ready on the train—I won't go into detail, but it was actually pretty impressive.

6am on the train. Running on 4 hours of sleep. Not our best time of the day, but we were happy! :D

We got off the train in Pisa and a gypsy tried to rob me. Really?? Not going to let that happen again... Emma and I decided that we were going to take pictures of Pisa's other monuments, the less known ones. Well, that was a little bit difficult because there were only about two in the entire city... It didn't matter though, the Leaning Tower was amazing! It was crazy to stand in front of it, such a famous monument; it almost didn't seem real. Hence, we did the total touristy thing and just took tons of ridiculous pictures so that we could remember it. FYI: Taking pictures there is harder than it looks. Emma, however, apparently looked like she knew what she was doing though because an Asian family had her take pictures of their daughter for them!

Other Pisa Monument #1

#2

#3?? (For you broha--love you!)

In case you somehow missed the huge tower, a nice little sign

Oh and a couple failed attempts :) 

As we were leaving the tower, we got stopped by some street vendors selling watches—not an uncommon thing to happen in Italy. This guy, however, wasn't as concerned with selling his watches as he was with selling himself and professing his love to me—so random! His sales pitch, in a heavy African accent, was "I saw those eyes from a mile away! I don't care about the money—take it, take my clothes! Take my watches! Baby take me!" Needless to say, we took the watches for a steal of a price, and nothing else. Well, almost nothing else, him and his friends insisted that we take their number; and although I insisted that my phone was dead, he wrote his number down on a piece of paper, put it in my hand, and assured me he would take Emma and I to the best parties in Pisa that night. So...we left to Florence!

We made it our first order of business to get a hostel in Florence because, well, there were no random beaches there that we could have slept on like we did in Cinque Terre... We found a random hostel, crashed for an hour and a half, and then got up to enjoy the night life of Florence. Florence is definitely a town for shopping, but you could have a blast without spending a dime. It looks a little like Rome I suppose, but Florence just has a different feel. Rather than thousands of tourists waiting in line to see or get into specific monuments, everyone is just walking around, shopping, sitting and talking. Of course there are some must see sights in Florence, so we took a lot of pictures, but then there were also outdoor concerts going on and a ton of random musicians playing. The city just has a cool feel.

Emma will hate me for this haha but it was my favorite picture of the trip :)

Emma and I met three guys from Romania: Eugene Grigoroiu, Bogdan Tomoiaga and Vlasin Livius (they couldn't pronounce my name either, so I didn't feel too bad about not being able to say theirs:). They were really friendly and more camera-happy than Emma and I (something that I didn't think was possible, but so nice because Emma and I actually have pictures together now!). We all ended up walking around the city that night and grabbing dinner at a legit Italian restaurant. Eugene, Bogdan and Vlasin were all engineers and spoke several languages; educated and very well cultured/traveled—something I respect very much. I feel so lucky to be here and to have the opportunity to constantly be meeting new and interesting people. Ya know, I'll probably never see those guys again, but it was still interesting to hear about their lives, to listen to them talk about their country, and to compare our cultures. Now if I ever go to Romania, I'll have some friends to call. :) I wish I could just spend the next 5 years of my life traveling the world and meeting people...while that probably isn't possible, I have definitely come down with the travel bug and can assure you that this is only the beginning of world travels!

how random that they have a University of Washington sticker on the door at a pizza place in Florence??

And a note with Gonzaga on it in the table

The next morning Emma and I got up bright and early—we've kind of fallen in love with being up before the rest of the world ever since Cinque Terre—and wanted to explore the city before the hustle and bustle of other tourists started. We walked all around Florence, attended part of a Catholic mass—which is one of the most beautiful things ever, ate gelato for lunch, and looked around various shops. As we were heading to the train station, we passed a leather shop; we said hi to the owner as we were passing by and he legitimately ended up running after us. He got our attention, complimented us on our beauty (guys in the States need to take notes), told me I had beautiful eyes, and insisted I meet his son. He called for his son, and was completely disappointed when he realized Marco (his son) wasn't working that day, but still invited us into his shop. He asked us how long we were staying in Florence and was distraught when I told him only a few more hours. He told me to come back next weekend, that Marco, “a beautiful, tall man who speaks five languages'”—would show me around Florence and that we could spend the next day at the beach together (haha). He assured Emma that Marco had a really good looking friend that would be perfect for her as well. We stayed in the shop for quite awhile talking to Ceaser (the store owner) and the other employees. It may have been my favorite part of the whole trip! They were some of the nicest people I have ever met, and were funny as heck. Site seeing is great, but meeting people is what I live for! Ceaser gave me his card and wrote down his son's name for me so that I could look him up on Facebook. Honestly, it's probably not going to happen, but it's still flattering and I think Ceaser is my new favorite person.  It never ceases to amaze me how kind and interesting people are, especially in Italy. I love the States, but I really wouldn't mind a few more months here...

Random guy that decided to jump in Emma's picture

K, so I'm taller than the average person in Italy, but really??

This man wants me to marry his son hahaha

It was sad to say goodbye to Florence, especially since our 4 hour train ride in the 99 degree weather had no air conditioning. Mamma mia! But I have a feeling that my last three weeks in Italy will be nothing short of amazing :)