A Week With Friends

So this past week has been some kind of crazy fun! My two friends, Andrea and Kathleen (a.k.a. Kathy), came to visit me in Italy. They were only here for a short week during their Fall Break from the U of U. We had a BLAST! They arrived, exhausted and beautiful, in Pisa Saturday night. Sunday we went to church at my Pisa branch where they met some awesome Italian members. We spent the rest of Sunday just hanging at the house...Kathy wasn't feeling so hot so we took it easy their first full day here. Monday morning we arose extremely early...and I'm not talking about my 9 am early, I'm speaking of the 5 am early, yes it is possible for me to get up that early -- despite some critics of mine :)
So, we got up painfully early to catch the 6:10 am train from Livorno to Rome. My friend Jason was gracious enough to play as our tour guide that day around Rome. We put on our turbo tourist shoes and saw Rome in just a few hours. We saw the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's, The School of Athens, the Coliseum, the fountain place (I can't remember the name...), a crazy man that was seriously going to abduct me..., and this awesome little garden that looked over the entire city of Rome. It was quite fun, and now, mostly a blur...I'll have to go back and take my time some day...how about November?...
We all had so much fun roaming around Rome, and by "roaming" I mean, practically running around like mad people. It was fun fun fun.

Tuesday we got up a little later, still early mind you, like 8:30 am, and took the one hour train to Florence. This city was the favorite of the week, I think. We really got to roam around and take our time in this city. We also got a lot of shopping done!! But the highlight of the day was when we went to the Accademia Museum and saw The David. Umm, the most awesome thing EVER! That sculpture was so awe-inspiring! I loved it. Florence was definitely a great day.

The next day, Wednesday we went to Cinque Terre...where I didn't take many pictures.... sorry. But it was a GREAT day to go. A little overcast which scared a few timid tourists (definitely NOT us) from going there that day, so it wasn't too crowded. We hiked around, ate lunch (yummy pesto pizza). It was a long day, but it was SO pretty!

Thursday Amy was nice enough to drive us to San Gimignano -- the city of towers. This city has 15 impressive towers among its already towering buildings. We had a good time shopping and looking at the views around the city on the hill. That night we went to the near town of Lucca to attend a concert of Puccini music (it was Puccini's 150 year birthday in Lucca, where he wrote most of his music) and watched a tenor, a soprano, and a piano. It was so pretty!!

Friday we got up and drove to the military base for the annual "Run to the Tower" which we changed to the "Walk to the Tower." We got awesome bright yellow shirts for participating and walked 7.2 miles from the base to the base of the leaning tower. it was a L O N G walk, but hilariously funny. Part of the way an Italian ambulance followed right behind us urging us to go faster...but there was no chance we were going to walk to the tower, so they gave up and followed the people that were actually running. It took the first place runner 39 minutes to finish the race; it took us (NOT last place) about 2 hours. It was really fun!

After we got to the tower we raced over to the train station and went to Volterra. If any know me they know I love the books written by Stephenie Meyer...the Twilight series. Well if any have read those books they know the city of Volterra and the clock tower. Andrea and I had a great time reenacting the scene in the book taken place in that city. It was fun, and we got some great looks from the locals, who have probably seen the same thing from other silly girls that have come before us. Anyway we found out a way to do even more shopping and then took a very long bus and train ride back to Pisa, where Amy picked us up from the station and we ate dinner at Cliff's in Marina di Pisa. It was yummy and hilarious.

Andrea and Kathy left on Saturday and I miss them already. We had an extremely busy and fun week!