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9:30 am
First let me write about Friday and Saturday.Friday morning I got up and walked to school early to study more for my quiz then had class?.good thing I studied the wrong thing but I think I did ok on it.We watched the film "Un Americano da Roma" and then I walked back home.I was so lazy all afternoon till jane came home.Since we never eat meat here Jane and Anita and I walked to Standa, our market, and bought some groceries?.and a lot of chicken.Anita cooked us pasta that night (which was delicious).When Ashley and suzanna and Kristina got home we all went down to our street and sat on the stone benches and chatted for a few hours.The whole time, suzanna was waiting for some Italian man to touch her so she could punch him?we have all been dieing to do that, we just need one good excuse.
Ok?.Saturday!Jane and I got up and thought the weather looked bad so we decided to postpone Pisa and just go to Fiesole?but suzanna and Kristina were not having it.I went and finally bought the sweatshirt id wanted and then we took off for Pisa.Me, Jane, Suzanna, and Kristina met (the other) Megan at the Duomo and walked to the santa maria novella train station where we basically went through a maze until we found the ticket counter.The lines were ridiculously long and there were these two mid-40s PUSHY Italian women behind us who kept trying, at all costs, to cut around us in line?so we expanded and kept a blockade to cut them off because they made us so mad.We bought our tickets and had literally 5 minutes till our train LEFT? so we ran to our platform, validated our tickets, and ran to a car.Me and suzanna sat next to a mom and her little 5yr old son, Errico.The train was about one hour, not bad, and we got off.Very soon we realized that the leaning tower is apparently not connected to the train station?a healthy mile-2 mile hike (across the river) later we arrived at Campo dei Miracoli (field of miracles) where the Duomo, Baptistry, and tower are.The walk was nice, almost desserted, very different from Florence where tourists expand into every nook of the city.We asked a Scottish man for help and eventually made it.Pisa is so beautiful, the river, the buildings, everything?very different than what everyone had told us.At first when we got there we thought the tower seemed a lot smaller than we had always thought?like a toy, but I guess it is pretty big.Me, jane, and megan walked around behind the tower to the grassy area and proceeded to take silly, amazingly tourist-y pictures for like an hour.Then megan and I grabbed a sandwich while the other girls napped on the grass in the perfect 70 something weather.I was dying to see inside the Cathedral because of Pisas Islamic influences so jane and I paid our 2 euros each and went inside.It was way better than I thought.The entire ceiling is covered by geometrical gold coffering and there are two levels of black and white striped arcades that end in a beautiful mosaic apse.This cathedral is so neat because the Pisano family of sculptors lived there.Nicola, the most famous one, carved the pulpit?so neat.Everywhere in pisa they show lions (even on the bridge and the pulpit)?I want to know what that means.On the walls there are floor to ceiling huge paintings?im not familiar with the artists, but they look very mannerist-ic, so I bet they date back to Caravaggio.On the fa?e there are lots of linlaid very geometric patterns as well? good symmetry?very Islamic?love it.(its got Islamic touches because it's a port town)There is even a church in pisa that claims t have a thorn from Jesuss crown of thorns.Also, pisa is where (in Acts) st. peter stepped foor in Italy first!Anyway, neat facts.After the cathedral we looked up and big scary rain clouds were quickly approaching?then the sky fell.We walked?.or trudged back to the train station just in time and got good seats this time?we had to run across three tracks to get there!The whole way back jane and I talked about our dinner we were going to cook?chicken, pasta with marinara, and zucchini.We got back to Florence and jane and I raced home, showered, cooked, and ate?it was so good!Jane got a little homesick later, so me and anita watched a movie with her on her laptop then I crashed into bed.
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