Cat's here and it's great! We've mostly been drinking a lot of wine and eating absurd amounts of food. Tonight we started with a snack at the apartment (cheese and cucumbers and apples, which is basically just the random food that I had in the fridge) then went to an aperitivo on the other side of the Arno. Drinks, mini pizzas, bread, veggies, tiny sandwiches. After that, we found a wine bar - drinks at the bar while we waited for a table, then a very, very large 4 course meal. Cheese and pears, soup, bread, tuna, dessert, lots and lots of wine, and two shots of espresso that were ordered by mistake. We had a hard time walking home, I'm pretty sure we ate enough to feed a small African country, and now I want to never eat again, ever. But yay, Cat's here!

Today, briefly: Took a train to Pisa. Saw the leaning tour of and took the cheesy "look, I'm holding up the tower!" picture. They sell a lot of leaning things there (mugs, shot glasses, lamps, bottles of alcohol). Really good gelato for lunch. Decided Livorno sounded like a neat seaside place to go, ran to catch the train. Turns out Livorno is basically one big car factory, but tried to make the best of it and find the ocean anyway. Talked to an old Italian man ("Scusa, dove il mare?"), who offered to take us there when his wife came to pick him up - turns out the ocean is pretty far, he thought we were crazy when we said we wanted to go by foot. Considered, but didn't want to get stuck in Livorno for the night, so ran to catch the train back to Pisa and try Lucca instead. Got to Pisa alright but missed Lucca because we got on the wrong train and the right one had already left by the time we figured it out. Met a crazy hyper middle-aged Italian man who basically sat on my lap while we were sitting like idiots in the wrong train, told us about all the places he was going to take us in Lucca or Via Reggio or London or something, then followed us while we tried to figure out when the next Lucca train left. Managed to ditch him, ate an orange in Pisa, got the next train to Lucca. Cutest town ever - maze of a wall, blooming trees lining the road, pretty piazzas. Best dinner (Trattoria di Leo), cheap and delicious 4 course meal, both Erin and I accidentally locked ourselves in the bathroom (silly Italian keys, or too much wine at dinner, maybe). Back to the deserted station, caught the last train back to Florence (;sfdlkgj w;eoifsdj Santa Maria Novella, what?). Bed.

A few pictures from lately:

A view of Siena.

Mercato Centrale, really good food.

So, this is my room. Great.

Me (happy Mom?) and the Trevi Fountain.

St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City.

The Colosseum, partly.

So, Rome. It's sort of like what I imagine Disney's interpretation of an Italian city would look like, and it's full of punks, couples making out on every free surface, and cute old couples wandering down the street.

Erin and I took the train in yesterday and arrived around 1. Kind of a crazy weekend. We set off to find our hostel and drop our bags, and we ended up walking through this really ghetto part of Rome - no sight of the hostel. We asked for directions and turns out that hostelworld.com's description of "centrally located" actually meant "centrally located in the middle of BFE." Since we didn't want to spend our whole day walking through depressing parts of Rome, we ditched the hostel and hopped on a bus/tram/trolley thing back to the center of the city, which promptly shut down because someone had parked their car across the track. So. Still in BFE, we followed the tracks for awhile and eventually hopped on a random bus that took us basically even further out of the city. Oops.

Few hours later we ended up near(ish) the Colosseum, so we grabbed lunch and started exploring, and basically walked around for many, many, many hours. Everything is so pretty at dusk/night. We found a random (sort of expensive) hotel near the Spanish steps, then hit some touristy spots - the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, gardens that I can't remember the name of (way up high, awesome view of the city), more ruins, and saw Vatican City from a distance. We found a cute place for dinner, followed by gelato from a crazy, crazy gelato place that stuck toys and tiny cones and sparkley things in their cones, then crashed back at the hotel in a really huge, warm, comfy bed.

Today, more walking. Left the hotel pretty early, went to St. Peter's Basillica in the Vatican. Heard the Pope speak! Cool! He addressed the huge, huge crowd in like 5 different languages, it was actually very emotional... okay. Afterwards, we wandered along the river, saw the Colosseum, the Forum, etc., all in the cold rain, then hopped on a train home.

So. I like traveling by train, a lot. Also, our hotel had free breakfast with really good chocolate pastries and little individual servings of Nutella (I stole a few). All good things. And now I have to sleep. And I'll do pictures later.

Tomorrow = Rome!

Sometimes I wish things weren't so ridiculous.

Also, timing is always wrong, for everything. Always.

I went to mass this morning at the Duomo. They were singing (chanting?) Gregorian chants (I guess chanting...) for about a half an hour before the service started and it was incredible. The acoustics were amazing and the chanting went in this circular kind of pattern and echoed beautifully. The mass was in Italian, which I can't completely follow, and I'm not really into religion anyway, so I spent most of the time people-watching. Very worth it.

Something I have learned: if you stand timidly on the side of the road, waiting for a break in traffic, you'll never get one. You have to make a mad dash and pray that you don't get hit.

The most frusterating aspect of this program is the campus. They sell you on this idea that you'll be going to classes "on a magnificent estate covering 57 acres of open fields, formal gardens, and olive groves," which admittedly is true, but we're not allowed to go anywhere. We're restricted to two villas connected by a long, straight gravel path. You get yelled at if you step on the grass. It's such a tease to be surrounded by all this beautiful scenery. You can see this little fountain circled by trees off in one of the fields, and yesterday I stood there looking at it longingly for a good three or four minutes; all I wanted to do was go sit under one of the trees.

Every morning the woman who has the terrace right outside my window spends a few minutes out there, feeding her dog and taking in the clothes that have dried during the night. She always looks at me, and I always smile, or wave, or both, but she just looks away, which is frusterating. This morning, she smiled back. My life is complete (or something a little less extreme).

I got the double kiss on the cheek greeting last night. Yes! Been waiting for that to actually happen in real life.

So still having a good time. Spent the day today wandering around the Uffizi, saw Boticelli's Spring and the Birth of Venus. Getting to see such famous paintings in person really, really makes me appreciate my high school art history class. NYU gave us all cards that allow us free entry into all the musuems in Italy for a year, so that's really great. After the museum we explored Mercato Centrale for a few hours; I bought a bracelet and some boots.

This city thing has been fun, but I don't know if I could ever live in one, long term. I've only been here for two weeks, Florence is a small city, and I already deperately need a break from all the people and traffic and smoke. My photography professor (who is fantastic, by the way) is hugely into the outdoors and environmental conservation, etc, and has told me about a ton of good hiking that's not too far away, so I'll be checking that out the first free day I have.