Crazy Tuscany?

Our time in florence with jen, jen and ashley was so much fun. we went out to dinner at this sweet restaurant-bar place that had all you can eat appetizers and drink for 8euro. we had lots of fun there and then found a bar to hang out in for the evening. we made friends with the bartenders there, did some singing and dancing, talked with some of the other people there and went to bed really late. it was a fun and crazy night.

we got up the next morning early so we could get to pisa, check into our hostel, and make it to the cinque terre for a day of hiking adventures. our trip to pisa ended up being somewhat of a wild goose chase. we finally found the hostel from the train station but no one was there. it was a simple door with just a small plaque on the wall that said pisa tower. the door was locked. after buzzing and knocking for a while we sat down to have cappachino and pastries at the cafe next door. we saw that the door was open a little later and jen went in to see if she could find anyone. the hallways were just numbered doors and there was no sort of front desk or reception area. she found a lady who only spoke italian and didnt know what was going on, but she called giovanni the mystery hostel boss to see what was going on. he said he was in rome and couldnt check us in, so he had moved their reservation to another hotel across town. wondering how we were supposed to know this, we trudged through the town of pisa (which is gorgeous and sooo cute) trying to find our new hotel. passing the leaning tower, we found our hotel and checked in. it was a nice place, just a very weird circumstance. now we were racing the clock to make it back to the train station to travel to the cinque terra.

We all changed into hiking clothes (the other 4 girls wearing shorts and me in thin work out pants) knowing we would be doing rigorous hiking for about 5 hours along the coast and hurried off to make our train. when we got to the first city we stepped off the train into 40 degree weather and freezing icy winds. ready to start hiking to warm up, we went in to buy our passes only to find out the park was closed due to rock slides!! what a day...we had had so much trouble getting there already and now we were freezing without a purpose anymore. we decided to explore the city of vernazza so we could see what the little towns were like. we ate lunch at a pizza place there (we got put in the very back of the restaurant) and ordered the greasiest pesto pizza ever. (vernazza is where pesto began). we decided to brave the cold once more and went out walking through the city. i couldnt believe the stares we got. without fail, every person we walked by stared and pointed, or laughed or whispered, and some even asked if we were cold. of course we were cold! we were amazed at how bold people were just to sit and openly stare at us for so long and with such confused faces. we hiked the portion of the trail that was open...a whopping 20 minutes and headed back to pisa. lets just say our expectations were not completely fulfilled. once we got to pisa we had to walk all the way back to our hotel in the freezing weather, (it was now night time) with more stares from everyone. we looked like a bunch of crazy people. it was a crazy day, but still we had lots of fun together.

Emily and i left pisa this morning and made our way to rome where well be for the next 3 nights. we saw the trevi fountain tonight and the spanish steps and were hoping to go to the vatican for mass tomorrow. weve had lots of pizza to eat and dont know any italian. were in a pretty ghetto part of rome, but the citys not to far away!