Just Go with It

The night before I left for Europe I watched Just Go with It with my parents. A young girl in the movie is explaining an acting situation and she says whatever happens, just go with it and that you can never say no.  Little did I know this would be a lesson for my time in Florence.

Lesson Learned #2: Just Go with it, and take a huge deep breath.

On day 2 in Florence (Saturday) we decided as a crew we would go to Pisa for a little, check out the tower and then head to the beach. Sounds simple enough right? Wrong. Trying to coordinate 16 people when traveling is something I would NEVER recommend let alone in another country where half of them do not have Italian cell phones. It was chaos.

The first problem was figuring out how/where to get tickets and then where we were going.  I have never felt like such a dumb American.  The whole day had issues with transportation that it finally clicked that I am without a doubt in a different country.  Yes, that sounds ignorant but up until this moment, nothing had been that difficult and even though I didn't speak Italian, it didn't seem to be a problem.

**Random side note, I was standing in Santa Maria Novella (The train station) when someone grabs my arm and says hi.  I turn around and find Allison Mast running through the train station going to catch her train! How insane is that.  Foothill kids running into each other in the Florence Station and we ended up taking the same train. Hope you had fun in Cinque Allison!

We got FINALLY got everyone on our train and we all found seats together when it was announced that there were problems with the train and we had to go get on another one.  This one was already packed with its original people plus our train so finding space was nearly impossible. Somehow Chez and I found seats while most of our group ended up sitting on the floor.

Two pictures of the struggle bus (train.) In addition to there being no room, the Italian girls next to me did not believe in deodorant and it was hot because of all the people.  Basically I was miserable. We finally arrived in Pisa and decided to do the Rick Steve's Walking tour to the tower. The train station is across the bridge from the tower so you have to walk a little to get there so we decided to see stuff on the way (bad decision.) Don't get me wrong, Pisa is a great place but other than one square, it was nothing out of the ordinary.  We walked around for a good 2 hours, got lost and decided to go straight to the tower. On the way, we stopped at this beautiful market and saw some of the most perfect food I have ever seen. 

When we finally arrived at the tower, I wondered where all these people came from.  When walking around the city, it didn't seem touristy or seem like there were that many people around and then we reached the tower.  Soooooooo many people all doing the same pose was a good laugh in the extreme heat and exhausting day. The tower was gorgeous.  I of course took a stereotypical holding the tower pose but I also tried to be philosophical...

Maybe the rest of the world is crooked, not the tower

There have been better attempts, I am aware but I thought I was creative in the moment. After the tower, the group was over Pisa and wanted to get straight to the beach. The only problem was, no one knew how to get there. 

Travel Rule #3: Make a plan before you leave if you need to use public transportation because Google Maps doesn't work without internet. 

We asked everyone we could and finally the ticket agent gave us bus tickets to get there. She said walk a block to the left and it will be there.  We walked outside and saw all the busses to the right... Now what? After 10 more minutes of walking in circles, an English speaking bus driver directed us in the direction of the right bus.  At this moment I have never wanted to be in the water so badly. 

After a 30 minute bus ride toward the coast, we finally arrived in Tirriena. It was so beautiful and totally worth the hellish day. The beaches with sand cost money and since we are poor college students, we decided to climb and lay on the rocks.  This was the first time I didn't feel like a tourist, we were finally among the locals and doing as the locals did.  We stripped off our clothes and jumped off the rocks into the refreshing sea below. 

Chez, Alex and I after a long day! 

We spent the rest of the day lounging around, eating some food and relaxing by the sea.  As we were headed home we discovered a local hiking path with the most amazing trees.  They looked like they were straight out of the Amazon because they were so bendy. We decided to let the boys do the path and we would wait for the bus so we didn't miss it on the way home. I got 4 bug bites just by standing in this area. 

I had fully intended on this being the end of my day, but I definitely thought wrong. The crew (which had narrowed to 8 by now) decided we wanted to do a family dinner when we got back.  I decided to plan it since I refused to let another thing go unplanned (shocker.) We had an INCREDIBLE dinner at Trattoria ZaZa which is conviniently located at the end of my street. Everything on the menu either had truffles or was seafood. Needless to say, we had a great time and ended up having about 14 people at dinner. What can I say, we roll deep. 

After dinner, a couple of us (who hadn't yet had Gelato in Italy) decided to search for an open Gelateria. This was so hard since it was pretty late but we ended up finding one by the Duomo.  

*When in doubt, things are always open by the Duomo*

As I was finally enjoying a tasty treat, my friend Tim was having major withdrawals from not playing the guitar and asked some locals playing on a bench in front of the duomo if he could join.  At first the answer was no, but they finally agreed.  It turned unreal when our other friend CJ busted out some blues singing.  My night was made. 

What a day! Phew, I was glad when it was over... but I knew that I had a crazy one the next day, we were headed to Cinque Terre!