il weekendhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Friday was a laid-back day – classes all morning. My lit professore is really interesting, he’s kinda old but is a very passionate speaker. We’re reading about piece about the rebellions in Sicily during the unification of Italy. The south of Italy has typically been very impoverished and has only caught up economically to the north in very recent decades. Along with the poverty went very stringent social classes and this piece, called La verita’ by Verga, describes in very intimate detail one uprising. The professore emphasized that this is NOT an exaggeration, this is very true to the actual events of uprisings in the south (and Sicilia in particular, apparently Sicily has had a strong history of rebellion and this partially explains why Garibaldi used Sicily as his home base when unifying Italy…I guess so he could keep an eye on them!) Anyway…interesting. My grammer class, second, was pretty average. The professoressa is interesting and nice but how exciting can grammar be? The one nice thing is that she is preparing us for our universita’ exams (oral…I’m petrified) so that’s handy. I jetted off to another wireless zone and talked with my folks for awhile (the iSight didn’t work…boo. I’m going to try again though) and then found a nice (read: cheap and good) restaurant on the via Cavour. I chatted with the guy behind the counter and ended up ordering way too much food but I wrapped some up for a snack later…SCORE. I met up with Kat and we went back to Antella; I went for a run and almost got killed by a dog but other than that, it was beautiful Toscana and me. Dinner was amazing, of course, we had this typical Florentian dish (whose name fails me now) but it’s made with all bread and has the consistency of a thick stew. Very very veryy good. Kat, Piya, and I ventured into the city for the night and saw African dance theatre in the piazza (instead of opera) and a live band on the Ponte Vecchio. Then we got gelato (of course) and headed back to Antella for the night. Saturday, I got up early (it was painful, too) and zipped into Florence to catch a bus to Lucca. The bus ride was only a bit over an hour and Lucca was beautiful – I walked on the intact city walls (3km around the city center) and cliiiiimed up the Torre delle Ore (Tower of the Hours) for a lovely view of the town. Well, the bells rang when I was up at the top but luckily for my eardrums it was only one o’clock! Checked out the two major churches in the city, had a “frete” which is apparently a typical Luccese pastry (though I may have been had there, the place looked pretty cheap but it was only a euro and was basically Italian donut…the best part was it TASTED Italian, it was cool, I can’t explain it…maybe there was citrus in it or something), and beat a quick retreat out of the city. I was impressed with how quickly you get to see things when you are doing it on your own!!! Took the bus to Pisa, more out obligation than anything (I just felt like I should see the tower. That’s all.) but ended up LOVING it. On the bus, I glanced up and it was just THERE, towering over me and looking like it had just lost its balance for a minute. I was the only one on the bus and wanted to go to the stazione to check out train times, but the driver drove PAST it without stopping so I had to ask him to stop. Had a bit of an adventure there…walked to the Campo dei Miracoli and just LOVED the tower. I fully expected to be able to have some kind of worldly nonchalance about such a touristy site, but I can’t explain it. There is just something so funny about this beautiful building…just LEANING. It’s just ridiculous looking. And even better were all the people there who were taking the typical “look-I’m-holding-up-the-tower” picture. I took a picture of the PEOPLE taking that picture. It was hilarious. I wandered around the duomo and the baptistery in the campo, both very beautiful, and lingered even as it started to rain because I just couldn’t stop LOOKING at the leaning tower. Even as I walked away, I kept glancing back, because man, it was just funny.

When I arrived in Firenze, I scouted out the same place I'd gone to for lunch the day before (walking in the rain for no apparent reason except I knew I liked that place) and the guy remembered me! He recommended some food, I enjoyed it, and as I left he said, "See you tomorrow!" So it was kinda cute. Relaxed with Marcello and Giuliana when I got home, and Sunday was a day of homework and relaxation...perfect.

Enjoy the pictures of the weekend!