Pisa, Arezzo, and Perugia

Last week we had finals on Wednesday and Thursday, so Thursday after class in the morning, a few friends and I decided to take a day trip to Pisa. I posted a few pictures in Pisa, including my goofy friends making to leaning tower of Matt =)

Then on Saturday, I went to Arezzo with some friends and then to Perugia from there. We were planning on going to Perugia for a magnificent festival know as Eurochocolate! It's a chocolate festival! (These Europeans are smart people.) The actual festival was great, but the travelling there was a complete disaster. (But a pretty amusing story.) So to start off, when we left Arezzo, we got onto the wrong train. It was the right track and right time, but wrong train. We were on a international train going to Napoli! Luckily we were informed of this mistake when the conductor came around to check tickets. It is the worst feeling ever to be told you're on the wrong train and have no idea where you are. So we got off on the next stop, figured things out, and realized we had gone 177Km in the WRONG direction. Fantastic. So we finally got to Perugia late only to find out our hostile was full. Evidentally, they had given away our places. Every single hostel and hotel was fully booked in Perugia because of the festival. Long story short, we got the number of a hostel owner outside the city, and although they were full, the owner said he could definitely give us a warm place to sleep. What an angel he was! We got there and the staff set up cots in the hallway. Not the ideal situation, but we could not believe the generosity of these people. And they refused to let us pay! I am still overwhelmed by the selfless and friendly hospitality of the owners. What wonderful people. After a VERY cold night and not much sleep, morning came and we headed back to Perugia. Finally chocolate!! There were so many people there it was packed! They had every type of chocolate imaginable and Sunday was chocolate sculpturing. It was amazing and definitely made up for all of the hastle getting there. Or so we thought.... We had planned to take the bus back to Siena that evening and the station workers told us to buy tickets later on the bus. We arrived at the station that evening only to hear that the only bus to Siena was completely full! Another long story short, we took a bus to the train station, took 3 trains and 2 buses to get back to Siena and finally arrived at 11:30 that night. It was SOOOO nice to be back! It was the first time Siena really felt like home to me. My bed felt great after all that chaos. Crazy, but memorable weekend. I added a few pictures from the Festival and from Arezzo.

Other than crazy travelling, everything is going well. I am oficially finished with Italian 1 and my Italian Opera class. Did well in both: got A's =)I can't believe I'm already in Italian 2. It is so fun to really see myself improve in the language. It is so much easier to learn language being fully immersed in the culture. I can already tell it is going to be strange to back to the US!

Hope all is well at home. Miss you guys!