Settimana di Scambio: Pisa

Technically, I guess that you could say that I have had two exchange weeks. The only difference is that one occured in my own city. The other one, Pisa, was definitely by far the best! Pisa is gorgeous. I want to go back right now. I want to hop on an airplane and go back. I got back home in Messina pretty late yesterday. It was around 9:30. I didn't have time to do anything. After this long week, I was completely destroyed. When I left last Sunday, I didn't think that I would end up loving Pisa and Tuscany as much as I did. I was also incredibly nervous to meet my week long host family. When Halldis and I arrived at the airport in Catania, we met up with Natalie and Mariana (two girls from Taormina). We all had the same flight to Pisa. We ended up being there around two hours ahead of time, so we were able to relax. We all grabbed something to eat and then headed through security and to our gate. Luckily, I managed to find pignolata at the airport for a gift for my host family. Pignolata is a typical Messinese dessert. Look it up! It is delicious! The flight didn't last long at all. Before I knew it, I was officially in Pisa. My host mother was there to greet me and we headed off home. From the very beginning, it was easy to talk to her. We went on a mini tour of Pisa in the car before heading home. At home, I met my host father and my new host brother. The brother then went out to be with friends. I ended up talking to my host parents for a long time while eating freshly made fruit salad. We all decided to go on a walk of Pisa. We went all around the center of the city and I saw the Tower, Duomo, and Baptistry. It was gorgeous. The weather was somewhat like normal Oregon weather. Gray.....sprinkling....it reminded me of home. We ran into other people from Intercultura who had the same idea to take the students for a walk. I got a gelato too. I have now discovered that pine nut gelato is heavenly. Everyone tried the pignolata that night. Thankfully, they all really liked it. Some people just don't like it, so I was a little worried that no one would enjoy it.

Monday, 22 March
On Monday, I had to wake up early and go to school. Yes, I had to go to school. My host father and I walked there. There, we all had to do a little enrollment process and next thing we knew, we were in our classes. My class, 4th B, was a class of guys. My class here in Messina consists of all girls and three boys. Well, this class in Pisa was all boys and three girls. Immediately, the teachers wanted to give me little things to do, like math and an American history project. It was a rather boring morning, but I met a lot of people. In the afternoon, we were walking around Pisa. Basically, I did the same walk that I had done the day before, but with other detours. It was gorgeous. Pisa is a little city with winding streets. There is also the university there, so there are a bunch of young people. The highlight of the tour was obviously the Tower, Duomo, and Baptistry. We took tons of pictures there. It was raining some, but that didn't stop us. Four of us, myself included, decided to enter into the Duomo and the Baptistry. The Duomo was beautiful. It was immense and highly decorated. The Baptistry, on the other hand, was not heavily decorated. It was very simple, but beautiful. We were inside when the man did the echo demonstration. He basically stands in the middle and sings, but the echo is marvelous. We walked around some more before heading to the train station to be picked up by our families.

Tuesday, 23 March
I went to school again Tuesday. It was even more boring than Monday. I had nothing to do. It was incredibly relieving to get out of there. After school, we headed to Lucca. At Lucca, we walked around. It was beautiful. Lucca is a little medieval town. The streets are all confusing and small. The unique thing about it is that the walls around the city are fully intact. The are huge. After an afternoon of touring around Lucca, we headed to the wall to relax. The Chinese girl that was with us met up with some Intercultura friends from Livorno. They ended up walking around Lucca by themselves. All the rest of us stayed on the walls to play a game (different version of Spin the Bottle....not a kissing one). As it turns out, the Chinese girl ended up getting lost and we ended up missing the first train back to Pisa. We waited for her to basically run back to us. We got back to Pisa later than planned, but it was fun.

Wednesday, 24 March
Wednesday, there was school again. Nothing exciting there. After school, I walked back home to eat lunch. It was my first lunch at home while in Pisa. We had pasta with a tomato sauce that had pancetta and peppers in it. It was spicy and delicious. After eating, then my host mother took me back to the school where all the Intercultura people were to meet up. There was only Luca, the 22 year old president of the chapter. The Chinese girl (can't remember her name because I can't pronounce it) showed up too. As it turns out, the others were at Zara...shopping. Since the people from Livorno were running late, we all headed to Zara to meet up with them. After hanging around talking and shopping, we went to the train station to meet the people from Livorno. They were mostly from Asia, but there were some other Europeans and South Americans. We all, as a group augmented to 22 from 7, headed to the Tower. This time, there was pretty good weather, so I took even more pictures of that whole area. We didn't do much with the people from Livorno because as a larger group, we moved slower. We went back to the station to say goodbye and then were there for another 45 minutes just talking. We went to McDonalds. The people I was with really like McDonalds. I didn't get anything...I just can't do it...even if it is a little different here. When my host mom arrived to pick me up, we went to a mini farmer's market. There, they sell things biologically sound. She bought parmiggiano. They also sold eggs and vegetables. Side note: Pisa is a city that is very "green" conscious. They have bike lanes, they don't use cars too much, they sell biologically sound products, they have Toyota Prius' as taxi's....you get the idea.

Thursday, 25 March
Thursday = Florence! It also equals the longest day ever. We woke up and went to the station. We had to be there by 8. Thankfully, my host mother came with us to Florence. Because she came too, I got a ride to the station. On the train, I was reading the back of a man's newspaper. It was all about the US and the relationship with Israel. I don't hear much news from the US, so I don't really know what is going on. I know about the new health law because it was on the news here. I was also talking to people the whole time. At Florence, we went to a church near the station before heading to the Duomo. I was too excited for the Duomo to pay much attention to this other church, but it was also gorgeous. After a little while, we finally made our way to the Duomo. The first thing you see when you come from the direction that I cam from is the dome. It was rather impressive. When we arrived in the piazza, we immediately saw Alejandro, one of the people who was in Messina for his exchange week. He told us that in this same day, the people from Reggio Emilia and Parma were also going to be there. He had just gotten there early and was waiting for them. Immediately, we all got a little excited because there were people in these places that we had not seen in a long time. Anyway, we all entered into the Duomo. Quite frankly, the Duomo is much prettier from the outside. Inside, it is immense, but not decorated much. There is the fresco in the dome, that is GORGEOUS, but the rest is just master architecture. I loved it! After meandering around there, we all headed outside to see how much it costs to go up to the top of the dome. WE WENT TO THE TOP OF THE DOME! It was 462 stairs all the way to the top. We got to walk around the base of the dome from the inside, immediately under the fresco. It was amazing. Then, there were tons of spiral staircases and curved staircases and staircases within tight walls to get to the top of the dome. From the inside, you can kind of see how they built the dome. It really is fascinating. From the top of the dome, you can see all over Florence. Thankfully, it was also a beautiful day. Too keep this from getting too long, I will abbreviate the day. We went to the Boboli Garden and we walked over the Ponte Vecchio (old bridge). We walked all over the place. My feet were hurting that is how much we walked. While we were eating lunch outside of the Boboli Garden, we saw all of the other Intercultura students doing the same thing. We all mixed and mingled. I saw Tobias from Messina...he was in Parma. I also saw my friend Laura from Idaho. We hadn't seen each other, let alone talked to each other since September. After lunch, we split up. There was a group that wanted to do shopping and another that wanted to see more of Florence. I was in the group that wanted to see more of Florence. I wanted to do shopping too, but hey....I was in Florence for one day. We walked around and went into another church. The name was something like Santa Croce. Anyway, this is the church where the cloisters are made by the same person who made the dome on the Duomo. There was also a room with a bunch of stuff made by della Robbia...all the terracotta with the colors. We went back to the station to meet up with the others. When we arrived in Pisa, I went shopping with my host mother and Halldis. We were going to the theatre that night, and I had nothing decent to wear. I bought a pair of shoes and a skirt. When we arrived back home, there was just enough time for me to change and eat dinner. At the theatre, we saw a modern dance. It was a combination of classical and modern. It was interesting. We all got home late.

Friday, 26 March
Friday was the last day with a schedualed trip. We went to Siena. Now, I understand why my English teacher last year talked about Siena so much. It is a beautiful city. We walked around obviously. We went into the Duomo, which is beautiful, and into the baptistry. We also went into a museum of the church. From the museum, we went up onto the roof, where we could see Siena and all the surrounding areas. Rather gorgeous if I do say so myself. At the Piazza del Campo, we hung around and discussed whether we should go up the bell tower or not. We decided against it because we were all really tired. The Piazza del Campo is beautiful. It would be so much fun to go there for the horse races that are held there. After Siena, we headed back to Pisa. Some of us decided to do a little shopping. It turned into more window shopping. I headed back home to find my host mother making crepes. YUM. We had four different kinds: asparagus, shrimp, cheese and prosciutto, and chocolate. :)

Saturday, 27 March
Saturday, I didn't go to school. It was in the plans, but a woman with Intercultura said that if we were really tired, we didn't have to go. Well, I was really, really tired. I didn't actually sleep late because of my natural inability to sleep-in, but was more rested. In the morning, my host mom went to play tennis, while my host father worked at home. I started to prepare my suitcase for the next day. After a while, my host mother came back and we decided to go for a turn around the city. She wanted to go on bikes, but because I am not used to bikes, we decided to go on foot. We walked around for a while. I saw places in Pisa that tourists wouldn't usually see. We took a bunch of little backroads. We ran into Eugenia, the woman with Intercultura, and we walked around with her. We went to another little biological market, where they sold everything from jewelry and shoes to honey, apples, and meat. There were little markets all over the city. We then headed back home to make lunch. After lunch, we lounged around for a bit before heading to Livorno. Because my host father works at Livorno, he really wanted to take me there. My host brother stayed home because he already had plans with friends. In fact, the entire week he was basically out of the house. He was always with friends or his girlfriend. We drove to Livorno. We went a little further south so that I could see the fantastic coast line. At Livorno, we walked along a long walkway right next to the water. We also stopped at a little piazza on the water dedicated to a composer Livornese. There, a man from Kenya tried to sell us things. He handed my host father a little elephant and put a bracelet on my wrist. He said they were gifts, but we knew that he was going to ask for some money too. In the end, they did end up being gifts. He even gave us another bracelet for my host mother. Another thing about Livorno was that there was this insane wind. It was strong! After the piazza, we went to a little section that was modeled after Venice. It doesn't look anything like Venice (not that I have been there, but I have seen pictures), but it has the canals going on. We also walked around a big old fortress. When we arrived back in Pisa, we looked up an apple pie recipe to see if there was time to make one before going to dinner, but there wasn't. We all ate in a pizzeria for dinner. There were in total 24 of us. The pizza was ok, but I must say that pizza from Southern Italy is much, much better. Dinner started at 8:30, but it didn't end until about 11:30. Then, we Intercultura students went with Luca and another volunteer to another area of Pisa. There, some people went into the discoteca and others walked around and went to a bar. The whole evening ended at around 2. I arrived home at 2. It turns out that that was really 3. The hour changed at 2 and went ahead one hour. I didn't get much sleep that night.

Sunday, 28 March
I didn't do much of anything on Sunday. In the morning, I prepared all of my things and was ready to go by 1o. I went grocery shopping with my host mom and bought Tuscan salame for my family here in Messina. A fascinating thing about the grocery store we were at was that there was this little electronic device that scanned the bar codes of every item you put in the cart and kept track of your total spendings. Then, at the check-out, the person only looked at this device to see the total and you pay. It was interesting. After we arrived home and put away all the groceries, I went with her to vote for the governor. After voting, we came home to eat an early lunch. After that, I said goodbye to my host brother and headed off to the airport with my parents. Mariana, Natalie, and I all got seats next to each other, but Halldis was separate because she was late. I checked my bag this time because it seemed bigger. I didn't want there to be any problems on the airplane. I was too tired. In the airport, we ended up seeing one of the volunteers that was with us that past week. The airplane to Catania was nice and short. At the airport, we had to wait for about 45 minutes just to get our baggage. The fun thing is though that....50 Cent was there! Yup! Since he has a concert in Catania, he was at the airport with his crew getting all of their luggage. For all of you that want to know, he was really close to where we were. When we left the airport, Natalie and Mariana both went together towards Taormina with Natalie's father. Halldis and I went to buy tickets to Messina on the bus. As it turns out, we had to wait until 7:10 to get the bus. We had almost 2 hours to wait. We ended up getting a snack and talking for two hours strait. The bus took about 2 hours to get to Messina. Then, her host father drove me home. My host parents had car issues and couldn't come and get me. It ended up being a long, long day.

This week there are only three days of school and then we are on Easter break. :)

Update soon! Love, Rebecca