Weekend Fun

Can you tell who this picture is of?  Of course, it's Katy and I!  On Friday we were out and about when we happened to pass one of those men who stop and draw a cartoon-ish picture of you in "three minutes" or less, so they say.  The man we happened to pass noticed Katy, and her "beautiful rosy cheeks" and eyes and said he MUST draw her, and for her, he would do it for only 10 euro, not the normal 20.  We actually escaped him after some time, but I later told Katy that it would have been fun to do and so, believe it or not, we went back to the man and told him that if he could draw both of us together, we'd do it.  And, here's the result, a beautiful and perfect representation of us.  Well, maybe not so much, but either way it was fun and now we have something to hang up on our wall in our room at the apartment. 

Friday afternoon we met up with some friends that knew a friend of Katy's...( kind of like a blind friendship date if you will )  So we met up with them, and got some lunch at a little pizzeria and chatted for over two hours over some pasta and a calzone larger than my face.  It was nice to start to make some more friends in this strange and far away city.  After lunch we found what is known to be "the BEST" gelato shoppe in Florence and got some delicious gelato.  We were both very imressed with the place and will for sure head back soon.  Here's a photo of Katy and I, and Gracie, our new friend. 

The rest of our Friday evening was nice and simple.  We just picked up some more groceries at the market and had a quite evening back at the apartment.  We had a big day the next day, or so we thought, as we were planning to take our first train out of Florence and go to Pisa.

Saturday dawned nice and gray and rainy, just as the whole week has been so far.  But we were determined to go to Pisa none the less.  We had already bought the ticket so we knew we were going to go.  We were slightly delayed as I just simply didn't feel like getting out of bed that morning... I'm still not sleeping so well here, so we ended up leaving about an hour later than we had planned, but it didn't really matter. Turns out train leave from Florence for Pisa about every hour so we had no problem hopping on a later train.  It was a nice ride, only about an hour and really very pretty, despite the weather.  It was nice to get out of the city a little and see some of the countryside.  It make us both excited for some of the weekend trips we've been planning.  Upon arriving in Pisa, I proceeded to buy a gigantic map of the town for a ridiculous 5 euro.... big mistake.  If you're ever in Pisa, let me tell you, you DON'T need a map.  It's small enough that you'll be just fine meandering around, trust me.  We just started walking straight out of the train station, and ended up at the leaning tower of Pisa within 10 or 15 minutes.  I, of course, took one of those cheesy pictures of me holding up the tower, so here's me with the tower...  aren't I strong! 

But really folks, Pisa can totally be done in about a half a day.  The tower and the baptismal are pretty much the cities biggest attraction, so don't plan on spending too long there. We meandered the streets for a while and ended up at some local flea market where we looked at lots of different shoppes and I bought a hat because I was so cold and it was only 4 euro.  Katy got a really pretty broach from a stand we passed, no earrings this time, just the broach.  Soon after we found some food,  it started to rain again, and as our umbrellas were pretty much shot and sadly broken, we headed straight back to the station to catch an early afternoon train to Florence.  It was a nice day, but we really could have done without all the wetness. Whenever you're ready to stop raining Italy, we're totally ready too.  

We finished off the evening by checking out the local pizzeria that we live above, and we were totally impressed.  Katy and Kimberly, one of our roommates, got pizzas and I got some lasagna, it was all very delicious, but the tastiest part was yet to come.  We all splurged and got dessert after our meal. I got cheesecake with strawberry sauce and they both got tiramisu, which was divine.  It's nice to know that there's a good place just three floors below us, but we all decided we'd better be careful with how often we visit that one, as their desserts are deliciously dangerous!  So, with full and happy bellies, we headed back up to our place and went to sleep.  

Sunday was a nice day of relaxing as well.  Went to a little church here down the street, it's very different than what we're used to, but still nice to be in a church of some sort on a Sunday morning.  It's a gorgeous building with beautiful stained glass windows and super high ceilings.  After service, we went to this little American brunch spot that our roommate had told us about.  I had heard that they had pancakes, which made me SO excited, as I've been craving a stack of delicious steaming pancakes since I've been here.  So we decided to check it out.  Unfortunately I was rather disappointed with my "Big American Breakfast" that I ordered... I think you just need to be in America to order an American breakfast.  But Katy and Tricia's food was awesome and I was impressed enough with their food to go back and check it out another day.  After filling our hungry bellies, Katy headed back to the apartment to be responsible and do her homework for Monday.  I, however, went out with Tricia to a Flea market across the river.  It was fun and I was tempted by pretty much everything that I saw, but everyone should be really proud of me because I didn't buy ANYTHING! 

After that, I finally headed home to get a lesson on how to use out washing machine and do some of my much needed laundry.  

Our second week of classes starts up again tomorrow, along with my birthday and hopefully plans of going out to eat with some friends to celebrate, so I'll be sure to keep this updated with our adventures of the week to come.  Until then, Ciao to all!