Saturday and Sunday!

 I am obviously going a little slow!  But here we go, Saturday morning started early where we met my art history class in Pisa for a day trip to Pisa and Lucca.  We of course started off our day with cappuccino number 7 and 8.  Where I saw my first sighting of latte art!!!!  I of course photographed it to share with y'all.

The closest thing I've seen to latte art! Pisa- Italy

In front of the leaning tower with Dad

We then went into every. single. museum.  Pisa had to offer.  In about 3 hours.  It was pretty intense, but cool at the same time.  I am really glad I got to see the Leaning Tower with my dad, it was the first time both of us had seen it, and really cool that we got to do it together.  After a quick lunch break we got on the train for Lucca! 

On the train headed for Lucca! 

 This was actually one of my favorite parts of the day.  It was so cool to jsut hop on the train with my dad and buzz over to another little town.  Once in Lucca we walked around for a bit before we met up with my class.  We then toured the beautiful, quaint city of Lucca.  Where I personally left a little piece of my heart,  it has definitely been one of my favorite places in Italy.  If not my favorite all together.  It just had a charm to it that is hard to find in a big city like Florence.

Lucca

During our afternoon trip we took advantage of the break to enjoy cappuccino 9 and 10 and scope out some good places for dinner.  Once we finished our tour we headed to a tasty fish place for dinner, and headed home.  Which actually ended up being pretty crazy because our train wasn't running so we had to take a bus to another train station.  It ended up working out even though I was little scared! 

Dad at the top of San Miniato- enjoying the view of Florence.

Sunday was a bit of a slower day, I mean what else do you expect after a full day with Helen? We started off the day with breakfast and cappuccino 11 and 12 then hiked up to San Miniato, a church up on a hill in Florence.  It has a great view of the city and I personally enjoy the hike.  

Festival de Gelato!  The oldest gelato place in Florence! 

After we relaxed a little and took in the gorgeous view we had a deeelightful brunch at the bottom of the hill.  This could possibly be one of my favorite meals I have had all of 2010.  It was sooo good, and of course it was a lot of fun!  I can't wait to go back!  After lunch we were pretty full and spent the afternoon walking around popping in and out of shops and just enjoying the city.

Cappuccino and swan cream puffs.  So good! 

We continued to enjoy cappuccino 13 and 14 spent time in Piazza Duomo, did some people watching. We even went back to the international festival to get round two of smurf gummies! Overall I had an excellent weekend with my dad and made so many memories that I will have forever.  Thanks for coming Dad, it really means a lot to me, I really enjoyed seeing the city with you.
Ellen

Bologna- or lack there of.

This past Saturday my friends Amanda Kayla and I decided to make a little day trip to a neighboring town Bologna (pronounced bo-loan-yuh).  And what an adventure we had!

We of course started out our day with breakfast at News Cafe! Much to my surprise, the guy working there knew what I wanted! I am now officially a News Cafe Regular.  In case that isn't very significant to you- you can just think of it as Ellen making Italian friends!

After we finished our cappuccinos we made our way over to the train station and bought round trip tickets to Bologna without a single hitch.  Only to find that the tickets we bought were not for the train we thought! So we ended up waiting in line for about twenty minutes, only to find out that the next train we could take with the tickets we had purchased wasn't taking off for about another hour and a half!  We decided to use our time wisely, and went shopping!!! Which really wasn't that great, except I did pick up a much needed wool sweater.  Once we had stopped into enough stores, it was time to get on the train.  Which you might be surprised to hear- we did successfully! We got on the right train, but we missed our stop!

Stuck in Pistoia.  Whaat?

Hahah it was so funny, so we got off at the next stop, then got on another train (which we didn't have a ticket for) and rode back to the staion we were suposed to get off at!  THEN we were finally on the right train and only an hour and ten minutes to Bologna!

A building in Bologna? 

We finally arrived in Bologna 10 minutes to 3! And by this time we were starving. So our first mission was, to eat lunch/dinner.  Mission accomplished.  Unfortunately we didn't have a map, and as strange as this may sound we couldn't find one anywhere! Fearing we wouldn't be able to find the train station again, and worn out and flustered form our earlier train experience.  We decided it would be best if we avoided wandering to much.  After an hour or so of walking around we were basically worn out.  It was sooo busy there and the weather wasn't the best.  So we decided to head back to the train station.

Kayla and Amanda in front of....(clueless without a map)

  Much to our delight the next train to Florence was leaving in merely 9 minutes.  We stamped our tickets and waited on the train to arrive.  Only to discover we were on the wrong platform, we found the right one and ran there.  Luckily the train was still there, but yet again it was the wrong platfrom! The station had 3 platfroms, East Central and West.  We were at the East Platfrom when we found out we needed to be at the West platfrom! Thinking we might be able to make it on time we started running the opposite direction.  Even though it sounds miserable, it was actually a lot of fun!  But we missed the train!

Not a big deal, the next one was leaving in 30 minutes.  We sat on the platform and waited, got on succesfully and made it home around 9:15.  

The Bologna Train Station! Something I DO know. 

Which basically means that we spent around 6 hours in transit, and 3 hours at the actually destination. Overall it was fun a fun day, and we really did learn a lot.  Would I do it again? Yes definitely.