Lucca and other updates

I wish I had ideas for more creative titles. Oh well.

So Friday during the day I successfully got that student card for the buses! Score! Now I don't have to worry about it at ALL the rest of the year... I was very proud that I successfully navigated a bit of Italian red tape totally on my own!

Friday night I was actually social - I had dinner with a large group from Centro Fiorenza and went out with a smaller group taken from that large group afterward as well. It was nice to spend a night out enjoying myself! The dinner was also fun in that there were so many people with different levels of Italian and different native languages, that the conversations swung from Italian to English to French, and apparently even some German (but not near my end of the table). I spent much of the night talking to Ben, a young man from France, and Thomas, a slightly older (late 20s) man who, if I remember correctly, has a Polish father, Japanese mother, was born in France, lived many years in Australia, and now lives in London... woo. He speaks both English and French well (along with Spanish I think?) and is continuing to work on his Italian. It was just the type of experience I could never get with a group of American students so it was a reaffirming social outing!

Saturday I had a relatively quick lunch with Lucia to talk about some things, including figuring out how I can get the entrance card required for the dining hall type place at the university - which would be a very useful option to have...

After lunch I met up with Laura, Cindy, and Kathrin, all from Centro Fiorenza. It was Kathrin's last day in Florence before returning to Germany. We walked around, went to a cafe, and did a tiny bit of shopping - I bought some boots! Then I returned home and spent a relaxing night here at the house.

Today I went to Lucca with Laura, Cindy, and Melanie, a woman who just arrived from Australia to take courses at Centro Fiorenza. It was such a beautiful city! After arriving on the train we entered through a path up through the city wall, and immediately began strolling around investigating various piazzas and churches. There was some sort of children's fencing event in one of the main piazzas! Toward the late morning we took a walk along with pathway that follows the city walls, it was sooo beautiful! I very much enjoyed how many trees there were and the views we had of the area just outside the city. After we had lunch, we went to a tower, called La Torre Guinigi, and climbed the 230 steps to the top. It was beautiful, such a breathtaking view. Even after we had spent quite some time up there part of me didn't want to leave! After that we went to Piazza Anfiteatro, which is notable in that it is pretty much an interrupted oval shape, which is a neat visual effect. We sat outside at a cafe and enjoyed some coffee type drinks and the sun. At that point we decided we'd done almost everything and headed back to the station and then back to Florence!

I realize my descriptions were a bit shorter than usual here - I think it is because I am getting more and more used to things (it isn't all so crazy and new) and because I am sort of tired but wanted to tell you all about Lucca and the weekend!

There are photos on picasa, the link is http://picasaweb.google.com/Kathryn.Weatherby/Lucca#

Let me know if you have any issues getting to the photos! Enjoy!