the imaginary boyfriend saves the day!

She's at the starting line...

I don't even know where to start! In the past few days I've been kicked out of an airport, camped out in a bathroom, accidentally gone on a date with 30 year old Italians, leaned with the tower, fallen in love with Florence, and so much more.. but let's start with the beginning!

We bought tickets for the metro on Thursday and legally rode it for the first time to the airport! We actually arrived at the airport about two hours before our flight, which was a good thing because the check-in line for Pisa was HUGE! Security was equally long. Spain will elect new government officials on March 9, which means it's been 4 years since the Madrid bombings. This means that Spain's security level is at its peak, and they are being very cautious about everything.

For some reason, our plane from Valencia to Pisa was packed. There were only a few open seats on the plane, and people had their luggage crammed in everywhere. When we landed in Pisa, Ryanair played a song over the intercom that sounded like something you'd hear at a horse race, and then everyone started yelling and clapping. Ryanair made some announcement about how, once again, they arrived on time, but I've noticed something about Ryanair: they always say their flights will last longer than they actually do so that they will always be ahead of schedule. Don't let them fool you! Silly Ryanair...

Since our flight got in so late to Pisa on Thursday night, we had planned on hanging out at the airport for a few hours before heading to the hotel in the morning. Well, Pisa International Airport had a surprise for us... they are closed from midnight-4am! The security guard kicked us outside! There we were stranded and cold in a foreign country all by ourselves. I will admit that we laughed about it a great deal; this kind of stuff only seems to happen to us, and there was nothing else we could do about it besides laugh. The security guard must have felt sorry for us, though, because he led us to this outdoor patio of a restaurant that had a canopy, and he let us shack up in there with a couple of other people. We tried to sleep, but that was impossible because it was freezing. However, we soon heard the voices of other Americans, and we invited them to join us in our little hut. A small group of college students from Michigan and Wisconsin who are studying abroad in Florence for the semester poured in to our refuge. Within a minute of knowing these people, I knocked over their wine bottle and made it break all over the floor. Luckily, the guy who it belonged to was really nice and didn't seem to mind too much! We ended up playing card games with them and talking to pass the time.

We even shared our blankets! As you can see from the left, everyone was huddled together for warmth. Seriously, it was miserably cold! The blankets really didn't do a lot of good, and we were definitely counting down for the reopening of the airport. Finally, the airport reopened, and we all jetted into the warm building. It was 4am at this time, which meant it was still too early to go to our hostel. Buses weren't even running! Considering we hadn't slept much the night before, Emily and I were very tired, so what do two tired girls do? They follow the example that Will Smith set in his movie Pursuit of Happiness, and they find a large handicap bathroom with a lock on the door. Ours happened to be located on the second floor of the Pisa airport! You know, looking back, I find it really gross that I slept on the floor of a public restroom for 6 (yes, until 10am!) hours, but at the time I was so tired that I didn't care. Really, it wasn't a bad little set-up. When we woke up, there was a sink and toilet right there waiting for us to use... and the ground was warm; you can't complain!


Still, we were more than happy to depart from the airport that Friday morning. After being told to go to 5 different places, we finally found a bus that lead to our hotel. Yup, you read that right; for once, we stayed in a hotel instead of a hostel (thanks, hostelworld!!). It was nestled into the Italian countryside about 5 minutes outside of Pisa, and it was absolutely gorgeous!! This is the front yard of the hotel. The best part was there was little kittens everywhere!! I guess, really, that's not the best part. The best part was probably the room! There was a bed, a heater, a TV with American channels, and our very own bathroom.. quite an upgrade from the night before or any of the hostels we've stayed in in the past! They even offered us free calls to U.S. (We hope it was really free... guess I'll see when the credit card bill comes next month!! Haha.), so Em and I got to call our parents. We can't complain about that! We took a short nap in our luxurious bed before heading into the great town of Pisa, which is home of the leaning tower and.... nothing else!


It wasn't hard to find the tower. There's really nothing else in Pisa! We've heard a lot of people say that there's nothing great about the tower, but I was really impressed with it. It looks like it could just topple over any second, but it doesn't!! Plus, there was a neat cathedral next to it.

We enjoyed taking pictures and watching people. It was also sort of neat to read about the history. There have been some major restorations done in order to make sure that the tower doesn't fall! During World War II, the U.S. actually considered bombing the tower. I'm glad we didn't! I liked seeing it.

After spending some time at the tower, we ate our first Italian meal: pizza! You could tell it was a bit of a touristy restaurant; part of the menu was in English! It was good, though, and we got to sit outside on the street, which I love! We walked around more of Pisa after lupper, and I discovered what might quite possibly be my favorite thing about Italy... gelato! Seriously, Italian ice cream is the best! :)

As it got closer to 7:00, we headed to the sister hotel of our hotel. Our hotel's owner had told us earlier in the day that if we wanted to go to happy hour, we could meet there. Well, since there's nothing else to do in Pisa, we decided to go for it. However, "happy hour" in America is apparently not the same as "happy hour" in Italy.

Our hotel owner didn't come pick us up to go to happy hour; instead he sent two men. At first, we assumed that these people also worked at the hotel, but it soon became clear that they were not employees (one has his PhD!). They showed us some of the more lively parts of Pisa, and then they took us to this Pizzaria.. does something sound strange about that? It was! Turns out our hotel owner had set us up on a date with two of his friends who are THIRTY. It was really creepy, especially when you stop and think about the fact that these two men are 10 years older than me, which makes them 20 years younger than my dad... gross! Don't worry; Emily and I are not stupid! We had a plan to get out of the situation. We lied and told them that we had boyfriends. As soon as they found this out, the entire atmosphere changed, and when we left the pizzaria, they weren't jumping to walk close to us and talk anymore. They lagged behind and eventually told us that they were tired and wanted to go home. They offered to drive us back to our hotel, but we declined because it was awkward and creepy. In the end, we accidentally went on a double date with 2 30 year old Italians, but we did get a really expensive pizza (25 euros!), a pitcher of wine, and a good story out of it, so we can't complain too much. There's a picture of our new boyfriends on the right.. I think their names were John Paul and John Mark or something. I'm pretty sure the one in the purple was mine; he did all the talking, while his friend just sat back and observed. Why do I always get the ones who feel the need to talk excessively??


Needless to say, after that encounter we didn't hang around too much at our hotel the next morning. Before leaving, we had one last strange encounter there. We met two other American college students, and within a minute of knowing us, they invited us to travel with them. They were a tad strange, and when we declined, they invited us for beers. Again, we declined, so they proceeded to follow us to the bus station and got off at the train station stop with us, even though that was not their stop... whatever! Maybe I need to learn to be more friendly, or maybe I need to figure out how to stop attracting such people. Anyway, we caught a train to Florence (Firenza!). Of course, after arriving in Florence we had the traditional meal of McDonald's, and then we headed off for our hostel, Novella's Place. After some searching, we finally found the place. Soon we realized that we weren't really staying in a hostel, though... I'm pretty sure we were staying in these people's apartment! It appeared that they live in a few of the rooms while renting the other room out. Overall, the place was fairly clean compared to other places we've stayed (especially the bathroom floor!), but it had this eery feeling to it. See that gate on the right? You had to walk through a door and THEN that gate and then another door and then another door to get to the room. It was weird. It was definitely not fun at night. What was even more strange was that they put us in one room for the first night, but then this little Italian woman who owns it who speaks no English made us move rooms the second night, and of course, we had no idea why. Whatever... it was clean! And cheap!

Our first stop in Florence was Ponte Vicchio, which is commonly referred to as "Old Bridge". It's basically a really famous bridge that runs over the Arno River is adorned with very expensive jewelry shops all throughout it. It was so cute, and it's something like 700 years old! It was one of the only bridges in Florence that survived World War II, which makes it even more special. The bridge led us to the other side of town, and we stumbled across the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, (the DUOMO!) which happens to be the 4th largest cathedral in the world. Seriously, it was huge! Unfortunately, unlike many of the other cathedrals we've seen, it lacked the intricate little details and ornate objects, which I love so much.

Still, it was a spectacular sight. See the dome part of it in the background? Well, if you are willing to pay 6 euro and climb 463 steps, you can go to the top. Well, we were willing! We decided to follow the mass of people waiting to get to the top. The way up was horrible. The staircases are all very narrow, and the ceilings are very low. It didn't help that the staircases were WINDING, and many people were trying to go down as we were trying to go up.. oh, it was not a fun process! When we finally got to the top, it was all worth it, though. You could do a complete 360 around the dome and see the entire town of Florence. It was magnificent!

Seriously, it was beautiful. See the mountains in the background? That's what I really love about Florence. I am having a hard time deciding whether I like Italy or Ireland better. Right now, I may be leaning (leaning! Get it!) towards Italy. Surprisingly, mots people speak English there, or at least more people speak it there than they do in Spain. I felt stupid because we'd go into stores and try to order things, and we'd dumb everything down before we soon realized that the store owners spoke English. Oh well! :)

After spending a large amount of time on top of the Duomo and breathing in the beauty of Florence, we strolled down to Galleria Dell Academia... home of Michelangelo's "David"! There are imitations of the amazing sculpture everywhere about town, but the real deal lies within this museum. I'm not a big art person, as I know very little about it, but I am so glad we decided to go to this museum. IT WAS AMAZING! David was so much bigger than I would have imagined. I just can't get over the fact that we viewed something that Michelangelo touched. I don't know a lot about sculpting, but I can tell you that this was amazing. He paid attention to every little detail, right down to the veins in his hands.


I took a few pictures of it before getting yelled at. Apparently there was this tiny sign in the back of the room that said NO photography, but I swear I didn't see it! The lady screamed at us and said, "Can you not read?!?!" Well, what if we couldn't, lady? The fact is that I can read, but I didn't see the sign, and since I didn't see the sign until after snapping a few pictures, I now have pictures of the real deal. Hooray! :)

We did some other touristy things on day two.. more exploring Florence, Pitti's Palace, and the Uffizi. One of my favorite things that occurred outside the Uffizi was the below picture. There are all these people who dress up like statues and hold perfectly still so they blend in! Then, of course, if you throw a coin or two at them they liven up for pictures. Yes, I got conned into giving them money; they were fun, especially because I didn't realize they were real people at first! Apparently the guy in this picture is real, but behind him is one of the actual statues. I saw a statue of Donnatello, which leads me to wonder where the rest of the Ninja Turtles were... maybe I'll find them when Aaron comes! :)

After wandering the city some more, we caught a cab to Michelangelo's Point. It's one of the highest spots in the city of Florence, and a really old cathedral is housed there. My friend Courtney suggested that we go there at sunset, so after looking through the cathedral and roaming the grounds, we found a nice little spot to sit and just look over the city. We also witnessed a wedding ceremony taking place.. how cute! Watching the sun melt into the sky while overlooking the city of Florence was a pretty spectacular thing.

I found myself wondering how anything could be more beautiful or amazing, but God likes to surprise me.. we decided to walk back to the city of Florence from the point because it was a beautiful evening, and we sort of knew where we were going. We headed downhill and found the river and followed it to the bridges. We ate dinner and gelato, and the sky continued to get even darker. When we crossed the bridge to go back to our hostel, we looked out over the river, and this is what we saw:

The moon was hitting the water perfectly, and the bridge was illuminated in just the right way to make the reflection in the water stand perfectly still. It was breath taking and left you with a sense of awe. Seriously, it was one of the most perfect moments I have ever had in life; I don't think there's any possible way I could have enjoyed it more (other than possibly replacing Emily with a boy... ;)... JUST KIDDING, EM TRAM!). I've often heard people, including myself, say, "Why, God?" when bad things happen, but for once, I was saying, "Why, God?" in a good way. Why did He choose me to be here and to experience this? I am not deserving of this, but I am so grateful to be here and to see these things and to try all these new things. I am continuously blessed beyond description. I don't ever want to forget little moments like Sunday night; I want to hold on to it all as best as I can.

Now we are back in Valencia. In two and a half weeks, my family will be here!! I am SOOO excited!!!! It'll make the whole journey complete! Of course, this means that my stay in Europe is almost halfway over. How is that even possible? This time last year, I would have never imagined that I'd be here. I thought my future was pretty well mapped out, but God bent it a bit, and here I am. It makes me wonder where I'll be in a year from now. With new experiences, I may branch out a little more in life, but one thing is for sure: my roots will never change! :)

...of the rest of her life.