"I'm gonna tell everyone to lighten up...."
Ciao everyone!!!
How are you all?
Please forgive me for not blogging very much the past few days! This weekend was a whirlwind of spontaneity and I honestly could not tell you where the time went! Is it really already Sunday? Do I really have to go to class again already tomorrow? And....wait....IS TOMORROW REALLY OCTOBER 1ST ALREADY?! See, point exactly: where is the time going?!
This weekend was absolutely amazing!!!
Let's begin with Friday morning, shall we?
Friday morning, after getting up, relaxing for a bit and getting a few errands done, a large group of us decided we would try and figure out how to make our way to the town of Lucca! (For anyone interested in traveling to Lucca if they ever visit Italy, check out this website which gives you a virtual tour!! If you're not planning to come to Italy anytime soon, still check it out! It will feel like you went!
http://www.italyguides.it/us/italy/tuscany/lucca/lucca.htm)
It's always a circus when you're trying to get a group of 9 people together to get **anything** accomplished. Friday at around 1:00 we all got together and were planning how to get together, however, just to make a long story short, after losing a few of our members who decided to go explore and just never return, and then losing another three people because they felt it was too late to go to Lucca by the time we actually got to the bus station, our party dwindled down from 9 to 4 people in a matter of two hours! However, Alex, Kelsey, Brandon and I, not wanting to waste a perfectly good afternoon, decided that we would still try to figure out how to get to Lucca and make the best out of a beautiful day!
After figuring out the bus tickets and which bus we would need to get to Lucca, we caught the 2:30 bus! Can you believe the tickets were only 5 euro!? It was absolutely worth going!! We arrived in Lucca around 3:40 and the bus dropped us off right in the outskirt of the town, which was perfect because Lucca is known for it's wall that surrounds the city and that you can walk!! It was so cool! You literally enter the city and right as you pass under an arch, there is a ramp that brings you up to the top of the wall which encloses the entire city and there you can walk the entire wall around the city! A lot of people tend to bike it though, but you can choose to do whatever you like. Personally, I did like how we walked it because I felt that we went slower and were able to better appreciate the absolutely beautiful sights of Lucca and its landscape. Although we didn't end up walking the entire 4km distance around the entire city, the little part of the wall that we did walk was one of the most beautiful things I've seen in Tuscany. It actually felt like a beautiful fall day, the leaves were falling off the trees that were lining either side of the walk along the wall and the weather was the most beautiful weather you could ask for.
Naturally, the kid in each of us is what got us to descend from the top of the wall and enter the actual town of Lucca where we stopped to play on the play ground for a bit! (For those of you who know that Alex and I went to China this past winter on a school trip, you'll probably remember the pictures we took on the playground! So naturally, we only felt it was right that we get the same picture a playground in Italy too..... taking on playgrounds one country at a time!) It was so much fun to be a kid again and swing on the swings, and just play around for a bit. The four of us always have a great time together and really enjoy being in each others company!
After finally managing to pull ourselves away from the playground, we just started wandering the streets of Lucca, no real sense of where we were going or what we would stumble upon, which in my opinion, is sometimes the best way to go. After walking for a bit, we came upon a carousel and still feeling that little kid within each of us, Kelsey, Alex and I decided we needed to go on! It was so much fun! After our ride, we walked over a few blocks and stumbled into a fresh, open market. Let me just tell you, the scents were amazing and I probably could have eaten everything in sight. From station to station the scent of lavender, cheeses, fruit, meats, spices, breads, herbs, chocolate....literally, everything was just the most delicious thing I have ever had the pleasure of smelling in my life. I'm pretty sure there were loaves of bread larger than me! And believe me, I would have been perfectly content with just buying one of those loaves and eating it the entire rest of the month as my dinner.......
I got to sample some peccorino romano cheese, some chocolate, some delicious traditional Florentine bread and I literally could have just kept going back to the stations over and over again until I was full on samples! After spending a few hours in the fresh market, we decided we would walk back to the center for dinner and then to try the local dessert of Lucca which is called "Il Frate" and essentially is like fried dough, although you can get it either as a donut, or a filled donut with creme or nutella! I only got the donut without the filling, but it was still delicious!!!
By the time we were done exploring the city, getting dinner and dessert, it was time to make our way back to the bus station to catch the 8:30 bus home.........or so, we thought.........
We got to the bus station around 8 and quickly went into a local cafe to grab some waters and sit for a minute before we had to catch the bus. When 8:20 rolled around, we made our way to the bus stop and waited for the bus.........and when 8:27 rolled around, we were still waiting........and then 8:45 came around and......we were still waiting........and then we asked some locals when the bus to Firenze was supposed to be arriving, and they oh, so helpfully told us that a bus "should come at 9, stay here, stay here", so we thought there was still hope! And then...... 9:00 came and we were still waiting.......and then 9:07 came and we were still waiting...... So at this point, thinking we might be stranded in Lucca, we called our study abroad program to see if they could help us, but Italy is just so far advanced, that they don't even have schedules online for their buses! WOOOO WEEEEEE! So, thankfully, we were just up the street from the train station and decided we might as well try and figure out the train system in Italy.... I mean, no time like when you're stranded to figure out a new form of transportation, right??! Luckily, I'd like to say that the bunch of us that were together are all smart people, so we were able to figure out the trains from Lucca to Florence. At 9:30, we boarded our train from Lucca to Firenze and all that was left was to sit back, relax and reminisce over an amazing day spent with great people, in a beautiful city!
I titled this post after Sheryl Crow's "Soak up the Sun", since it was one of the songs we jammed out to on the train ride home in our own little cart that just the four of us shared on the train. It just felt so prevalent!
So for those of you looking for a little song to brighten up your day today, follow this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuWcqSi6mPU&feature=fvst
It was an amazing day and so many wonderful memories were made! After all, that's what traveling and life are all about: just picking up sometimes to go and do something spontaneous, no plans or expectations, just high spirits and a longing for adventure!
Anyway, since this post was a tid bit longer than I thought it would be, I'm going to post about horseback riding and everything that I did on Saturday and this morning (Sunday) in the next post!!
Be sure to check out my photos page for some awesome photos from Lucca!
Love to all!!! Missing everyone back in the states, especially Pajj, Liz, Gma tini, Alexandra, Magda and Kelsey!!! <3
I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!!!
xoxoxoxo
la vita e bella!!!
Ciao!!
How are you all?
Please forgive me for not blogging very much the past few days! This weekend was a whirlwind of spontaneity and I honestly could not tell you where the time went! Is it really already Sunday? Do I really have to go to class again already tomorrow? And....wait....IS TOMORROW REALLY OCTOBER 1ST ALREADY?! See, point exactly: where is the time going?!
This weekend was absolutely amazing!!!
Let's begin with Friday morning, shall we?
Friday morning, after getting up, relaxing for a bit and getting a few errands done, a large group of us decided we would try and figure out how to make our way to the town of Lucca! (For anyone interested in traveling to Lucca if they ever visit Italy, check out this website which gives you a virtual tour!! If you're not planning to come to Italy anytime soon, still check it out! It will feel like you went!
http://www.italyguides.it/us/italy/tuscany/lucca/lucca.htm)
It's always a circus when you're trying to get a group of 9 people together to get **anything** accomplished. Friday at around 1:00 we all got together and were planning how to get together, however, just to make a long story short, after losing a few of our members who decided to go explore and just never return, and then losing another three people because they felt it was too late to go to Lucca by the time we actually got to the bus station, our party dwindled down from 9 to 4 people in a matter of two hours! However, Alex, Kelsey, Brandon and I, not wanting to waste a perfectly good afternoon, decided that we would still try to figure out how to get to Lucca and make the best out of a beautiful day!
After figuring out the bus tickets and which bus we would need to get to Lucca, we caught the 2:30 bus! Can you believe the tickets were only 5 euro!? It was absolutely worth going!! We arrived in Lucca around 3:40 and the bus dropped us off right in the outskirt of the town, which was perfect because Lucca is known for it's wall that surrounds the city and that you can walk!! It was so cool! You literally enter the city and right as you pass under an arch, there is a ramp that brings you up to the top of the wall which encloses the entire city and there you can walk the entire wall around the city! A lot of people tend to bike it though, but you can choose to do whatever you like. Personally, I did like how we walked it because I felt that we went slower and were able to better appreciate the absolutely beautiful sights of Lucca and its landscape. Although we didn't end up walking the entire 4km distance around the entire city, the little part of the wall that we did walk was one of the most beautiful things I've seen in Tuscany. It actually felt like a beautiful fall day, the leaves were falling off the trees that were lining either side of the walk along the wall and the weather was the most beautiful weather you could ask for.
Naturally, the kid in each of us is what got us to descend from the top of the wall and enter the actual town of Lucca where we stopped to play on the play ground for a bit! (For those of you who know that Alex and I went to China this past winter on a school trip, you'll probably remember the pictures we took on the playground! So naturally, we only felt it was right that we get the same picture a playground in Italy too..... taking on playgrounds one country at a time!) It was so much fun to be a kid again and swing on the swings, and just play around for a bit. The four of us always have a great time together and really enjoy being in each others company!
After finally managing to pull ourselves away from the playground, we just started wandering the streets of Lucca, no real sense of where we were going or what we would stumble upon, which in my opinion, is sometimes the best way to go. After walking for a bit, we came upon a carousel and still feeling that little kid within each of us, Kelsey, Alex and I decided we needed to go on! It was so much fun! After our ride, we walked over a few blocks and stumbled into a fresh, open market. Let me just tell you, the scents were amazing and I probably could have eaten everything in sight. From station to station the scent of lavender, cheeses, fruit, meats, spices, breads, herbs, chocolate....literally, everything was just the most delicious thing I have ever had the pleasure of smelling in my life. I'm pretty sure there were loaves of bread larger than me! And believe me, I would have been perfectly content with just buying one of those loaves and eating it the entire rest of the month as my dinner.......
I got to sample some peccorino romano cheese, some chocolate, some delicious traditional Florentine bread and I literally could have just kept going back to the stations over and over again until I was full on samples! After spending a few hours in the fresh market, we decided we would walk back to the center for dinner and then to try the local dessert of Lucca which is called "Il Frate" and essentially is like fried dough, although you can get it either as a donut, or a filled donut with creme or nutella! I only got the donut without the filling, but it was still delicious!!!
By the time we were done exploring the city, getting dinner and dessert, it was time to make our way back to the bus station to catch the 8:30 bus home.........or so, we thought.........
We got to the bus station around 8 and quickly went into a local cafe to grab some waters and sit for a minute before we had to catch the bus. When 8:20 rolled around, we made our way to the bus stop and waited for the bus.........and when 8:27 rolled around, we were still waiting........and then 8:45 came around and......we were still waiting........and then we asked some locals when the bus to Firenze was supposed to be arriving, and they oh, so helpfully told us that a bus "should come at 9, stay here, stay here", so we thought there was still hope! And then...... 9:00 came and we were still waiting.......and then 9:07 came and we were still waiting...... So at this point, thinking we might be stranded in Lucca, we called our study abroad program to see if they could help us, but Italy is just so far advanced, that they don't even have schedules online for their buses! WOOOO WEEEEEE! So, thankfully, we were just up the street from the train station and decided we might as well try and figure out the train system in Italy.... I mean, no time like when you're stranded to figure out a new form of transportation, right??! Luckily, I'd like to say that the bunch of us that were together are all smart people, so we were able to figure out the trains from Lucca to Florence. At 9:30, we boarded our train from Lucca to Firenze and all that was left was to sit back, relax and reminisce over an amazing day spent with great people, in a beautiful city!
I titled this post after Sheryl Crow's "Soak up the Sun", since it was one of the songs we jammed out to on the train ride home in our own little cart that just the four of us shared on the train. It just felt so prevalent!
So for those of you looking for a little song to brighten up your day today, follow this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuWcqSi6mPU&feature=fvst
It was an amazing day and so many wonderful memories were made! After all, that's what traveling and life are all about: just picking up sometimes to go and do something spontaneous, no plans or expectations, just high spirits and a longing for adventure!
Anyway, since this post was a tid bit longer than I thought it would be, I'm going to post about horseback riding and everything that I did on Saturday and this morning (Sunday) in the next post!!
Be sure to check out my photos page for some awesome photos from Lucca!
Love to all!!! Missing everyone back in the states, especially Pajj, Liz, Gma tini, Alexandra, Magda and Kelsey!!! <3
I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!!!
xoxoxoxo
la vita e bella!!!
Ciao!!
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