Le Avventure di Emily and Andrew (Parte Terza)

Ok, I'm continuing my story of my Easter vacation with Pisa.

Everyone knows Pisa for one thing, the famous tower that leans to the southeast. I've had friends (Rob) who have told me that that's the only remarkable thing to see in Pisa. Whether or not that is true I can't tell because we spent only a day there and visited only the Piazza dei Miracoli, where the tower is. But it didn't really matter because the tower itself is such an incredible feat of architecture. Not because it's leaning, just the construction of it. Emily and I got to the piazza and we took a few cheesy photos of us holding up or standing next to the tower. I actually kind of feel bad because I feel like the pictures I took of Emily weren't that good, or at least up to her standards. But oh well.

The tower was incredible. I think there are like seven levels, and it was kind of weird that the first two were built and then they stopped for some unknown reason. There are only 33 remaining original columns on the tower. Unfortunately, the tower is "worse" in terms of artistic value, at least according to Benjamin's "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." Why do you ask? Well, engineers and scientists have worked together to repair the tower over time, constantly preserving the tilt of it. Which proves that tourism has always been a priority in this little town. Therefore, the tower is underneath all its beautiful white stone a metal post stuck deep into the ground. Whatever, though ... it is so incredible to look at that it doesn't matter that much to me.

There are two other main buildings in the piazza, the duomo in the center and the battistero (baptistery) on the western side. These three buildings are made out of the whitest stone and stand out almost like teeth from the pristine green grass. It literally is the best-kept lawn I have seen in Italy. And so many people just sit out on the lawn, chatting, lying down, admiring the architecture. And there are some that play calcio on the yard but they aren't really allowed. I sat down with Emily and we just caught up on some news in the shadow of the tower as the sun was setting. This was really our relax day after the busy days in Torino and Genova.

Our hostel was... bad. Actually it was close to the Piazza dei Miracoli, but unfortunately we had to walk through an underpass that was coated several times over in graffiti and flanked by roaring traffic. Our hostel was actually like a kind of campground, and my room was a tight two-bed deal with a bath, which would have been nice, except for two things. First, I didn't get to choose my roommate, not that I usually do, but it would have been better if I could share a room with Emily instead of the Australian dude. He was maybe 37, said that he taught English in Japan and now was just on vacation because he didn't know what else to do. He said he started in Russia, and he was working up the Italian coast the opposite direction from us. Sounds interesting, yeah, but I just thought it was weird being in this tight space with a guy I didn't know at all. Emily on the other hand had a roommate from Massachusetts, which is practically BC kind of. Whatever, I don't really care. But I was also dissatisfied by the quality of my blankets which had huge moth holes in them. Only minor discomfort though. But this was during the peak of my cold so I wasn't a big fan of the whole arrangement. One good thing was that I figured out how to use my international calling card, so I called Mom and Vittoria that night.


Before I forget! We walked down the street from the Piazza dei Miracoli to a restaurant with fairly decent prices (we both ate for 22 euro) and I ordered the tagliatelle, and Emily got the fixed price menu which included a dish of pasta and a cotoletta alla milanese with potatoes (the potatoes, however, were fries, so Emily was not too excited about that). But it was good all the same, as usual.

We woke up in the morning and spent a little time at this cafe where we ordered a brioche and caffe. There were two police officers flirting with the waitress, so we enjoyed watching that scene. When we finished, we sat for an hour or two at the Piazza dei Miracoli again to get one last look at the tower before our train to Livorno. Livorno (brutally butchered into the English "Leghorn") is the capoluogho, or capital of the Toscana region. It's on the coast and has a few interesting parts of the city including canals and a "Little Venice" area. There is also a statue of "I Quattro Mori," the four moors, which is the symbol of the city. We walked a little around Livorno looking for a place to eat, but kept close to the train station because of the weight of our luggage and also because we didn't want to miss the train to Roma.

We didn't find anywhere to eat so we just stayed at the train station, where we ate lunch and got a box of Bacetti Perugina, one of my favorite kinds of chocolates from Italy. So we just chatted after eating, stamped our tickets and then people watched for a little before boarding our train, which was actually 15 minutes late. That's acceptable though. This part was the slowest of our trip in terms of waiting, etc, but it was still nice just hanging out with Emily. I wish I had been feeling better though because I definitely was exuding an aura of displeasure.

In the train station, I told Emily, "Every time I get on a train, I hope to get a few opportunities to speak Italian, however no one ever speaks to me." I justified the seemingly standoffish behavior of the other passengers with the idea that in airplanes in the US, I would be annoyed by a foreign kid who just wanted to practice his English if he kept bothering me. But a slight knowledge of English would probably impress me and may even be helpful. But I actually got a chance to practice my Italian a bit on this train. We were in a four-person group of seats on this train, and I sat next to this young guy from Rome. He was reading "La Repubblica," which is the Roman newspaper, it is kind of like the New York Times of Italy in some ways. But we didn't talk until the fourth passenger of our seat group came, this woman who was looking for a place to put her bag. Her seat was next to Emily's, so I helped to facilitate communications and moved the luggage around to make space. A long time went by. I'll also add that this train had really depressing bathrooms, meaning they were bad. Then, as we were getting into Rome, this guy asked me a few questions. He knew right off that we were Americans, which impressed me... oddly, sidenote, some Tunisian guy in Genova thought we were French. But anyway this guy on the train was impressed with my Italian, but more importantly to me I wasn't really intimidated to speak with him so it was easy to communicate. Younger people are easier to talk to for that reason, I find.

We checked our bags into the Roma Termini station, to keep them for a while before the infernal process of finding our hostel which hung over our heads like the lofty metaphors I tend to use in my blog. We got three-day metro passes and went straight to the Trinita dei Monti, known more commonly as the Spanish Steps. It was just about sunset, and it was more fun to share the view and the people watching with someone else. We walked from there to Piazza Navona, home of the famous Bernini fountain, and we ate dinner, which ended up costing more than we thought since we both ordered dessert and my gelato was literally the size of my head. We walked through the springtime streets of Rome, this is the old town, so backstreets really, past the pantheon and famous churches like the Sant'Ignazio. Rome is so beautiful at night.

Except when you need to get to your hostel and you can't get there. It was sooo annoying because our nice long dinner made us miss the last train up to Prima Porta (way way way north of the city, like almost an hour) and so we ended up having to take a metro to Piazza del Popolo, then the tram. Oh the tram. There were six or seven French a cappella singers there at the station, and they began to sing a rendition of some Alleluia chorus I'd heard before except substituting "The Tram" and later "Burger King" which was just across the street. So anyway, we got off the tram and walked to the bus station, and rode on the bus for about a half hour, autostrada and all, before getting off at the wrong station by following the French kids, after which we got back on and arrived at last at Prima Porta, which should be called Ultima Porta because it felt like the last place on earth. By now it was like 12:30 am and we were really tired and annoyed, but the guy from the hostel (called Tiber Camping) picked us up and we checked in.

I'll finish next time. It's currently raining now in Venice, kind of a shame. I went out to lunch today with my American friends Jenn, Theresa, John and Lauren, and Francesca, one of the Italian girls, came with us. We ate at a good restaurant and got gelato at our favorite place. Now, I'm just hanging out in the VIU computer lab. Tonight, Rita Piccolo comes to Venice, and she may take us out to dinner so that could be exciting. But if she doesn't I figure I'll just eat at the mensa and I'll go to the film showing of Othello (Fishburne version) that I have to watch for my Shakespeare class.

Ciao per ora,
Andrew