Why bicycles are awesome

The first thing I have to say is that the Leaning Tower of Pisa deserves all the fame it's received.

Next I'd like to point out that I'm at an internet point right now, using an Italian computer with an Italian keyboard, and it's pretty exciting. For instance, where the apostrophe key should be, there's an à, which I apparently am unable to remember every single time I get to I'm or it's or some such word.

But anyway, back to Pisa. The Tower actually isn't all that's there. There are two other buildings that share the Piazza dei Miracoli, a Duomo and a Baptistery. Both are exquisite buildings, absolutely amazing. But the Tower is definitely the focus of the Piazza. It's so peculiar, because it seems to confuse the eye. At the bottom, the tilt seems very sharp, whereas the top looks pretty vertical; the tower was actually built against its tilt to counter it sinking, so technically it's not even straight - I love it so much for that peculiarity!

First independent travel weekend. Independent travel means overnight travel. A very big deal, then, and this weekend was the first it was allowed. We - Ryan, Peregrine, Aleja and I - made this trip to Lucca and to Pisa. Officially they are now my favorite two cities in Italy, though I suppose I have to go to a few more before I can say that. We got to Pisa early Sunday morning, before the flood of tourists arrived, so it was quiet and brisk, and absolutely spectacular. I don't know if I'll ever be able to go back now, because the image I have of it is so utterly perfect. However I suppose I must. Someday I'd love to climb the tower; I didn't do that this time, though I rather would have liked to. It seems somewhat overrated, though - climb to the top and see all the cute little tourists down below! I liked the view up, myself, as one of the cute little tourists. Oh, but it's just so gorgeous! One thing I was surprised at, though, was how small it is. And I don't mean that in a bad way at all, since I loved it to no end - I just mean that in all the pictures, and all the little models of it, it's made out to be taller and skinnier, when in reality it's rather short and squat. The moment before I saw it was really intense - the Tower is sort of the symbol of Italy and therefore it seems like such a significant building to finally get to see. So when I finally entered the Piazza, and my eyes locked on it, my first thought was, "wow, it's tiny." But I wasn't disappointed at all, to my surprise. It's too "particulare" as Italians would say. One story was even under construction and covered in scaffolding, yet that still was unable to take away from how striking the Tower is.

Pisa we went to only Sunday morning; all of Saturday, as well as that night we spent in Lucca. Lucca is flat. In the most beautiful, wonderful way possible, it is the flattest city I've yet encountered in Italy. I want to live there, just to be able to bike up and down every gorgeous street. Hills are charming and cute and all, but I can only stand so many of them. And I've never lived in a completely flat city, which made Lucca's relaxing spread all the more splendid. In Viterbo, everyone is on a moped (Vespas are awesome, I admit), but after a while I start to miss good old-fashioned bicycles. In Lucca, everyone rides a bicycle. Old women zoom by between errands on even older bicycles, with a basket between the handles and a bell. Teenagers ride seated two to a bike, balanced precariously on handlebars. Lecherous old men, who in Viterbo leer through the windshield at passing women, pedal slowly and distractedly through the bustling piazzas in twos and threes. Little kids on tiny, colorful bikes wheel around their mothers pushing strollers on their evening passegiata... have I described the passegiata? It's utterly pointless to the purpose-minded American, but for the relaxed, slow Italian evenings it's an absolutely wonderful institution. As it begins to get dark out and the streets light up with shops and lamps, everyone goes out. The whole town, it seems, and then some convene to walk through the streets with no goal or destination in mind, simply to see and to be seen. You can encounter the baker from your favorite pasticceria or an acquaintance to whom you haven't spoken in a while, stop and greet each other, talk for a little while, promise to get together sometime soon, part company and continue your passegiata, idling along the streets. It's wonderful.

The main passegiata in Viterbo happens along the Corso, the more affordable of two main shopping streets. I haven't yet taken part in it as every evening I've walked through the throngs of people I've had a place to be and therefore haven't been able to slow down and just walk lazily. Maybe someday.

However if a creepy old man in a car pulls over next to you and calls "passegiato?" out his window, the answer you want to give would be a resounding NO. Seriously, I'm going to have to get a slingshot soon just for the Viterban old men, the horrid creatures. Though it's amusing on days when I'm not stressed or rushing somewhere or carrying a really heavy backpack. You'd think that all women in this province die at age 40. Poor lonely old farts. Except wait. I have no pity for them, so never mind.

Anyhow, Lucca is gorgeous. The most unique part of the city is that it has walls which run all the way around it, walls which it spent 4 centuries making so that it could resist all attack. And then not a single person ever even vaguely threatened Lucca, not even by accident (how would you threaten a city by accident? "Whoops, pointed our cannon the wrong way, sorry about that." Somehow that's very sad) Hah, funny how the world turns... I wonder when they began to suspect that their massive undertaking was utterly pointless. That must have been a sad day.

But I don't think it's all that pointless. In fact, I think it was an excellent achievement, if only because the walls have now been converted into one of the most beautiful parks I've ever seen. Walking the path that runs along the top of the walls, you can see both into the city and out into the rest of Lucca which lies outside the walls. And there's a gorgeous view of mountains in the distance, which are perhaps (don't mock my geographical failures) the Alps? forse? maybe? Looking into the city, what you can mainly see is a great deal of roofs, largely moss-covered (I love Italian mossy roofs, so much). The best part has to be the tower, though, with the tree growing out of the top. I saw it at dusk from the base, but that didn't have nearly the effect as did seeing it from the walls in the brisk morning, with the city spread out around it and jagged, misty mountains in the distance behind it. That sight alone could convince me to move to Lucca. Add in the bicycle factor, and I'm now officially a Luccan. I want to live there more than anywhere else I've yet been. Forse un giorno...

The hostel was great. It's the hostel of San Frediano, and if I were feeling particularly brilliant, I would google him to find out why he's important, and then pass off what I learned as merely another shred of my infinite wealth of knowledge. Anyway, we got a room, which actually turned out to be two floors! Admittedly each floor was rather small, but I couldn't have cared less. How cool is it to have a loft with a grandissima window overlooking a little courtyard, and the walls? We even climbed up to the wall across from our window on Saturday night to see our room (only to realize that we'd accidentally left the light on... hehe). Saturday night got a little slow, if only because we still have the "MUST BE DOING SOMETHING OR GOING SOMEWHERE WITH A PURPOSE!!!!" American mindset that must be completely doffed before participating in the passegiata. However it regained its speed when we went to dinner (un po più presto, verso le 9.00 - we were going to wait till 10.30 like Italians, but our stomachs decreed otherwise). And I had (oooh, excellence) minestrone. The first time I've had soup since I've gotten here. I miss soup so much! So endlessly much. And this minestrone was excellent like no other, or at least seemed so since I have been suffering so from soup-lack. Ryan got coniglio, which was actually quite delicious, but which he insisted on calling "bunny." Somehow it seems so much more evil to eat bunny than to eat rabbit. I actually think that that was the first time I've ever eaten bunny. It tasted somewhat like chicken, but better. It had a lot of bones, though, making it pretty difficult to cut. I'll settle for my nice, friendly and delectable minestrone any day. Ooh, you know what's delicious? Gnocchi. Is that how it's spelled? Whatever, it's amazing. *melts* Best pasta EVER. And ragù, too, but I have that too often to be utterly enchanted by its very existence, as I am by gnocchi's. So good.

Oh yes. I almost forgot the most excellent part. Olive oil tasting!! We came on the perfect weekend. That Saturday evening there were two olive oil tasting events, as right now is olive-picking season so everyone's keen to try the fresh olive oil. Can I point out that fresh olive oil, while delicious, is vaguely sketchy? It's sort of this radioactive green color, and burns your throat as you drink it. My family plays this game where they compete to see who can eat the most pieces of bruschetti (toasted bread with salt and olive oil) before it becomes too painful to eat any more. Something about that games seems very wrong to me. But who am I to judge? Simply a young foolish American who can only eat one piece of bruschetti with fresh olive oil. My brother always wins with about 5 pieces, though I think he forces it down to impress his girlfriend. Ah, Marco. He's a funny one.

But yes, the olive tasting events were quite excellent. We tasted what was recommended to us on cute little chunks of bread. Italian bread tends to be a flavor vacuum till you learn to appreciate it. As someone who could eat whole loaves of French bread within a half hour, I suffered greatly when first introduced to Italian bread. Next to French bread, it's like styrofoam (with roughly the same texture, too... peculiar). However in the two and a half months that I've been here (it hurts to say that - I still want to think I have 9 months left here, but it's practically December!) I have come to love the bread. It's an excellent sponge. If you eat it plain then I would have to assume that you have absolutely no worldly goods, not even a penny in your pocket, to buy anything else to eat. However soaking up juice from whatever you've eaten... heavenly. The bread is so good that way. It would seem I have finally learned the secret of Italian bread. Ooh, but it was just so classy to be able to go to a real olive oil tasting evening. One was in a little market, very low-key. Everyone seemed to be coming to that one, as it was a relaxed, friendly atmosphere. The other one was a little more well-to-do. It was in the downstairs of an art gallery (the type of art gallery that has Armani-clad couples strolling in the garden outside enjoying a cigarette and sipping from crystal wine glasses), and definitely had a more formal air about it. We tried to get into the art gallery, too, but they charged (well, no, duh - however one can always hope!).

Sunday morning was actually excellent, though freezing cold. We walked back to the train station via the walls, shivering and bundled up in excessive layers of garments (luckily that meant our bags were light, as we were wearing virtually everything we'd brought). Trees line the path along the top of the walls, making it more beautiful, if possible. The trees are tall and thin, and very autumny, and made me feel very much like I was on the east coast as opposed to in Italy. Rosy-cheeked and red-nosed from the cold, but if possible even more taken with Lucca, we arrived at the train station just (literally just) as our train was pulling away. We watched it depart, rather dejectedly, and then went to look at the time tables, only to discover that the next one was not for 2 hours. Ouch. So, we found a station to go through, and go through it successfully we did. Viareggio, up the coast from Pisa, is a gorgeous train ride from Lucca, including some amazing craggy mountains and a great deal of lake/river/marshland (whatever it was, there was a lot of grass and a lot of water, and it was very pretty) and some lovely, billowy mist. There's certainly plenty of mist in Lazio - sometimes I think that's all there is. However this mist was pretty because instead of whiting out everything, it rolled lazily down out of the mountains, and served more as a finishing touch to the picture than as a giant train-eating cookie monster (speaking of which, did you hear the bad news?!?! I heard it, but I can't really remember it... but the cookie monster is no more! He's something horrible and new now, like the veggie monster, or the fiber monster, or the "there are starving kids in China so finish your dinner" monster). In fact the mist has little or nothing to do with the cookie monster, but I just heard the news and am still reeling from it, so I felt the need to incorporate it into my blog somewhere.

Having successfully arrived in Viareggio, we hopped on to our train to Pisa, and you know the rest. All in all it was an amazing trip. The only bum thing was that I had not done a bit of homework before departing, and did not get home till about 8:30 on Sunday night, in time only to eat dinner and collapse into bed. And there was one of those super-fun "read your essay out loud to the whole class even though you only spent a half hour this morning writing it before breakfast" things in Ancient History class. Thus far I've suffered two, though fortunately neither has gone too badly. I even get to brag about the first one, since for that one we got to write our own "primary source" as an Etruscan (ha. ha. Etruscans are SO BORING! Though I liked my source. Maybe I'll add it here...), and since I'm so much better at creative writing than at history paper type writing, I rocked that one. Unfortunately reading it was rather awkward - Professor Sammartino didn't really like anyone else's, and had just finished criticizing all their primary sources and giving a lengthy lecture on what an ideal primary source should have, when he finally called on me to read. And apparently mine was exactly what he had been waiting for; "brava," he said when I finished, before turning on the others. "This is exactly what your sources should sound like." It was awkward, yes, but I'm a vain person, and I can't say I minded it all that much. Luckily everyone had pretty much zoned out after the first two primary sources, so there were no hard feelings.

And with that little smidgen of blatant self-promotion, I bid thee all good night.