Pisa

  

Pisa, Pisa, Pisa.. First trip out of florence and I think my face in the second picture perfectly summarizes it... Awkward, fun, random, spontaneous, but overall beautiful. (cocky? no confident) We left at 8:30 am, and took a 70 minute bus ride there. We arrived at the Pisa Airport and then took another bus to the center.

     

There we found a huge pigeon statue.. In the second picture you can find Kat on her way to mounting its neck comparable to Harry Potter himself.  

 Abbie and Maryn can be seen here enjoying the one of many bus rides on the way to Terrania beach which is off of the Ligurian Sea.

     

 So we arrived at the beach somehow and ended up walking through this creepy passageway (some do not think it was creepy but I still do)  The weather was questionable at first, but it ended up being a really nice day. Of course Vivi, Maryn and I figured it would be a good idea not to pack towels. No we did not forget them, we actually thought about bringing them and then decided against it; therefore after an hour on the beach maryn's red scarf just wasn't doing it. We then ventured off to find out how much a chair would be to rent.  The place we were laying in front of had blue chairs and the beach spot was called Bar "something i dont remember" calypso. Of course the guy at the hut type stand did not know english, but of course we tried to explain to him in english and very broken italian what we wanted. We eventually came to find out that we were supposed to pay 4 euro just to sit on the beach and then renting an umbrella and 2 chairs was another 15 euro. Not too many were thrilled with this idea considering we had already been sitting on the beach for an hour for free and nothing bad had happened to us yet.  Maryn and Vivi were on the verge of giving in until I convinced them that we should check out the other chair places. Next to us, on the other side, were some other blue chairs and after that were some orange chairs. The second set of blue chairs were slightly nicer and ended up being a private club. The third set of chairs were orange and we thought we would give it one more shot... Bitchen enough it ended up being an American Military base beach, so not only did the lady at the "hut" speak very wisconsinion English, but it only cost 11 euro to rent 3 chairs and an umbrella, but it did not cost to just sit there.

  

dear Iowa and all of my friends I miss you and this is not only your proof, but your postcard so don't be expecting one

  Vivi lookin hot 4 u

 

we also decided to rent a paddle boat for 10 euro. They knew we were fashion design majors so they made sure to give us the most attractive, high fashion life jackets that they had available. I think these were JLO brand but I'm not sure. Anyway in the water we spent most of the time paddling in circles, jumping waves, and running into a little boy who was surfing.  our shadows, plus abbie's penis.

  

meet mustache man. possibly a very awkward picture since he knew I was taking it, but obviously worth it in the end.

  

So after a long, good day at the beach, we head back to the center and then to our hostile. Don't be fooled by the first picture because when we arrived it was dark and extremely terrifying. I may have seen our hostile in Dawn of the dead.

 Picture this car at night, with that small light next to it turned on. Exactly. 

The inside was decently nice and had tons of free candy available, and yes I took advantage of this and ate at least 7 pieces. The first picture is of the room Alyssa and I stayed in.  

The other 4 stayed in this room which had bunk beds and then a set of beds like ours. We stayed in the part of the hostile that used to be a church, so at first I was thinking oh well this is a place of god. About 5 minutes later I had convinced myself that there was also a high chance of being possessed by some sort of demon.  Later that night I dreamt that I went to the hair salon to dye my hair brown, but then I went into a possessed state and did something crazy to the lady who was dying my hair. I am now more skeptical about dying my hair brown.  lobby of the hostile.

 all in one bathroom. I don't think I can call it a full bathroom because there was no shower, but just a shower faucet sticking out of the wall. I guess this would be easier for people who like to pee in the shower.

  It was really nice of them to give us the Iowa themed room.

   

After settling into our cozy rooms we ventured off yet again to go get something to eat. While waiting at the bus stop for a mere 30 minutes, we ran into some Larrikan Australian dudes who had been traveling around the world for the last month. Oddly enough now they are in florence, so we will probably see them again.

 

The next morning we took the bus down to the field of miracles. First we stopped and got coffee and pastries. 

 

Notice how everyone, no matter where they are from, does the same pisa picture. I took pictures of them, and I hope they look at my blog and realize how silly billy they look.

 

At 7 pm we climbed all 294 steps to the top and you might think you are not afraid of heights, but maybe if you are on top of a leaning tower on a windy day you will think differently. Other than that the view was amazing and it was completely worth the 15 euro. Brief history: The tower started being built in 1173 and was finished in 1372. It is leaning at a 5 degree angle or 15 feet off being vertical and 30 million dollar were spent in 1990 alone trying to stabilize it. It leans because this part of pisa used to be part of the sea, and so now the tower lays on very shallow 13 foot foundation (florence & tuscany 2008).

  

One of the miracles in this field was the Baptistery as seen above. Please don't confuse this as being called the duomo just because it has a dome. Every half an hour a man or a woman comes and "sings" in the middle, and other than that the only noises that are heard are people shsshing... Brief history: In the center you can find a statue of John the Baptist, which is surrounded by an octagon baptismal font, and the 8 sides represent the 8th night of Christ's ordeal or his resurrection. 

 

Now here is the pisa duomo. This was probably my favorite building just because it was amazing inside and out. This cathedral houses Emporer Henry VII's tomb, St. Ranieri's body, Galileo's Lamp, and Giovanni's pulpit.

  

Here is the Camposanto Cemetary. The floor is made of gravestones of nearly 600 pisans. Here we also saw the famous painting, Triumph of Death, which is said to show the mood of Pisa at the time with the Bubonic plague that killed one in three.

 of course we had to still support Iowa State during the game even though we unfortunately lost. :(  Please take notice to the hilarious guy in the back, also obviously a Cyclone fan.
 

Overall the Field of Miracles was breathtaking and I was really happy that we had the whole day to completely take advantage of seeing each building. 

Around 8pm we headed to dinner until at 10 pm and then we attempted to catch our bus. Unfortunately we forgot to check the bus schedule and didn't know that the last bus to the airport left at 8:15 pm.  Since our bus back to Florence left in an hour we attempted to call ourselves a cab, but again the language barrier made that close to impossible. From this we all ran back to the restaurant and thankfully they called us a cab. On a funny side note.

So around 1 am we got back to Florence. We were welcomed home by Ryan's wine teeth and Willy's gearing sense of humor (im not sure that is an actual word, but i think its fitting). 

I hope you enjoyed Pisa as much as I did. 

Thanks for reading and be excited for the next blog when I tell you about the famous person I saw today! dun dun dunnnnn

again to be continued...