Italia

I am now in Italy! I am here studying for an entire school year, but will be home for a semester at Christmas. I am here with Pepperdine studying with about 50 other students. We all live together in an old hotel, where we sleep, eat, and study. Since arriving, we have visited several cities as a group, as well as done some traveling with just a few friends. We have visited Fiesole, just outside of Florence, San Gimignano, Arezzo, Cortona, and Siena. I have also been to Pisa, Livorno, and Cinque Terre. I have fallen in love with the Italian countryside and the food here. I was very excited to buy my first Italian cookbook with over 400 recipes!

I went to Pisa and Livorno with my roommates, Danielle and Natalie. We had a Sunday off and decided to get out of the city and take a day trip. The original plan was to only go to Pisa. We had all wanted to see the leaning tower, and it is only an hour train ride from Florence. Something that seemed so simple caused us so much trouble. We didn't realize that Pisa was a stop along the way to La Spezia, which is the final destination of the train. So as we walked around confused looking for the train, one departed right in front of us. Lucky for us, though, there is a train that leaves every 30 minutes. We finally found the "binario" (platform) and made our way onto the correct train. After an hour, we finally arrived in Pisa! Unfortunately, it was a cool, rainy day. But it was still amazing to see the city. We saw where Galileo was a professor and an old Medici castle. We went to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa and attempted to take pictures to make it look like we were holding the tower up. After about 30 minutes of trying, we moved on to look at some of the tourist shops along the road. Danielle and I were looking at postcards of places in Tuscany and talking about the ones we had been to. There was one that we had not been to, Livorno, that stuck out to us. The picture was beautiful. Danielle suggested that we go there, since we were finished with Pisa, and about thirty minutes later we were on a short train ride to Livorno.

Livorno is right on the water; it is the port for cruise ships when they send passengers to Florence. We didn't know much about it, so decided to walk along what looked like the main road heading out to the water. That turned into a forty-five minute journey. We finally came to water, but it was not a beach, but a port. We explored around and saw two large ships with people crowded around them. The first one was called San Giusto. We went up to see what was going on, and a man from the Italian Navy explained to us that the ship was part of the Naval Academy. Unfortunately, the ship was closed for tours for the time being, but he told us to come back in an hour. Just next door was another ship, Amerigo Vespucci. It is a ship from 1931 that is also a part of the Naval Academy. After touring both the ships and making friends in the Italian Navy, we headed back to the train station, proud of our trip and ready to return to Florence.