Pisa, and a few lessons

Today, Laura, Kathryn, Kelly, Yoya, Katie and I went to Pisa for a short day-trip. We got to the train station at about 9:45 and got round-trip tickets for 11.60 euros, which i thought was pretty good. when we got there it was probably about 11:30, and we had an early lunch before walking into town. at the restaurant, the lady must have assumed we wanted spaghetti, because she only offered spaghetti with meat sauce and with marinara sauce. so we had spaghetti.

the walk into the center with the leaning tower and everything else was longer than i expected. but we got there and took pictures, including ones with us "holding it up". we walked through the vendors a while and then headed back. at that point we were so exhausted and hot and wanted to get back. we were in pisa for probably about 5 hours, which was plenty. we did find out though that if you want to go to the bathroom in public places, you often have to pay to do so. like 60 cents.

we ended up going out to dinner around 9:30. kathryn met up with a friend of hers, adam, who had just met this guy named claudio (which we only found out later- we thought they were traveling together). claudio and adam came to dinner with us in this whole-in-the-wall pizza place that we never would have found had katie's sister not recommended it to her. it was really good, but we think that claudio may not have paid for his dinner, but instead let us cover all of it. he was helpful with ordering and such since he was pretty fluent in italian, but we were not happy about maybe having paid for his dinner.

after dinner we went to a club and sat outside in the street. it's so weird that everyone was in the street with their drinks. definitely not allowed in the US! so many creepy guys were around, too. some came and stood right in front of us while we were sitting on the curb, so we left. i went home with 3 of the girls while the others stayed out.

walking home, i was paranoid that claudio may have been coming to stay at our apartment. he did not. whew.

so far it's been really nice to hang out with the girls in my apartment. what makes it even nicer is that since we live so far away, we always have people to walk back with. i would feel so bad asking people to walk me back here, but i'd have to do it. i hope that when we start classes and stuff we continue to hang out. i'm afraid that i won't make such convenient friends and might miss out on things. but i hope not.

happy 4th of july to all of y'all! it'll be pretty chill here, obviously.

love and miss you!