Days trips this weekend to Pisa, Siena and Lucca!

Ciao! It was quite the busy weekend for me! My roommate Roxanne and I took two day trips on Friday and Saturday and then our program took us to the small town of Lucca and then headed to an olive oil tasting! It was a really good weekend, because all of these were places that I wanted to see, and they were just a short train ride away, which made it very convenient! The weather here is cooling down...a lot. It is still beautiful out most days, with the sun shinning, but...it can be deceiving because the wind and temperature can be more harsh than expecting...nonetheless, we had a great weekend seeing other parts of Tuscany!

The first trip, to Pisa was a blast. That was the only day in terms of weather that was cloudy, but Roxanne and I had a really great time together, taking pictures with the Leaning Tower and walking around the small town. There were a lot of fun shops to walk through, and of course, we had to get gelato, which was delicious. One of the most entertaining part of the trip was, in a non-offensive way of course was seeing all of the Asian tourists! Seriously, Pisa was just packed, and it was just so entertaining watch everyone pose with the Leaning Tower, because everyone just looks so ridiculous. The pictures hopefully prove the points I am trying to make! So, despite the weather, it was still really fun to be with Roxanne and seeing this part of the country!

Our second day trip was to Siena. It is sooo beautiful there! The weather was sunny, but bitterly cold, both her and I could barely move by the end of the day. Plus, the sun goes down at like 5, so it gets even more cold when that happens. Anyways, Siena is so nice, the architecture is beautiful, and it just has a really clean, quaint feel to it. Like Pisa, there were so many cute shops to walk through and my favorite part was sitting in Piazza del Campo, a pretty well known Piazza in Italy. We just ate some lunch, got gelato, and sat in the Piazza for about 2 hours, because the sun shinning down on us felt sooo good. It's definitely an Italian "thing" to just sit in piazzas, which has become my favorite thing here. People just sit, listen to music, read, journal, drink wine and enjoy the beautiful scenery and realize that Italy is probably the most amazing place they've ever been to :) So, we saw a lot of churches and buildings that were very classic. Besides the cold weather it was a great city to see!

And finally: Lucca. A small town about an hour away from Florence. It's a walled in, quaint little town, with a ton of churches! They call it the town of 1,000 churches (not actually that many) but there are a ton and it made me think of Minnesota-The Land of 10,000 Lakes...MINNESOTA PRIDE BABY! Haha, but it was cute, the only thing is that a lot of things are closed on Sundays, so we weren't able to enjoy browsing through the shops like the other two towns. After visiting Lucca, we went to an oil farm and had an oil tasting! It was so cool! Did you know that it takes 1,000 olives to make ONE BOTTLE?! Only like one drop is used from the olive because more than 50% of the olive is actually water. Also, black and green olives grow on the same tree! WHO KNEW?! I should probably work for them, because I'm so knowledgeable now ;) Then we got to taste the oil the farm produces and it was so so good! We got lots of bread, olive oil, salami and olives...DELICIOUS and my kind of meal :) Again, the sun was out and beautiful, it was just a little chilly!

Great weekend, so glad I got to see these places! This week, I've got to start some final papers that are due in the next two weeks and start the "beginning of the end" of visiting all my favorite places one last time like, especially St. Miniato and Piazza Michaelangelo. Can't believe I only have a month left! Ciao!