Singin in the rain...in Pisa!

Disclaimer: The vast majority of these photos were taken by my roommate Alaina, whose blog I highly recommend! (click her name to visit!) :)

Friday morning we woke up to some very scary looking skies, but we would NOT be deterred from our Pisan mission! Off we ventured to Stazione di Santa Maria Novella, about a 15 minute walk from our apartment, and bought train tickets for the first time.

It's actually really easy with these self-service machines. You just have to go up to a little yellow box after the ticket prints out and get it stamped. Italian train system: conquered.

And off to Pisa we were! We arrived there about an hour later to pouring rain. We had a restaurant recommendation, but since none of us had a map or any desire to wander around in the rain, we took a taxi.

We were HUNGRY signorinas! We eventually found the restaurant, Vineria.

Don't I look a little scared?!

Since it was supposedly a fish restaurant, most of us ordered the pasta with fresh tomatoes and calamari...

Oh dear me. BEST thing I have tasted so far. I pretty much inhaled this in a very un-European manner. Could have used a few more tomatoes, but really...It was amazing. The kind of food you can still remember the taste of years later. Needless to say, the end result was...

Yup. Mmmm, I had a happy belly!

So off to the tower we went! On our way we came across this totally random little building:

NO idea what it was. But you know, you see an old structure in ruins in Italy, you figure it had to be important to someone at some point in history. And therefore, you must take a picture of it.

The tower was soon in sight!

And yes, we did the stereotypical tourist poses. People stared, hilarity ensued. The usual.

You probably can't quite see it, but I am in fact holding up the tower with a mere index finger. I told you yoga makes you stronger!

Marissa and I, at war!

RUN AWAY!

Leaning tower? Just call the ladies of Apartment 17!

Alaina and I attempted to stay dry.

After we felt that we had made sufficient fools of ourselves, we proceeded on to our next mission: the first gelato. I know, I've been here two weeks and I hadn't had any yet, but it's been COLD! Anyway, weather be damned, today was the day. We found a random restaurant - really, we just wanted somewhere to eat it inside and be warm! It wasn't the most amazing gelato I've had, but it was quite tasty. Strawberry and coffee. Weird combo, but hey, so am I.

We eventually found the train station again and were on our way back home, anxiously awaiting some downtime. Being an obnoxious tourist really takes it out of you!

Once home, I needed to make a quick trip to the market for some water...on my way, I may or may not have gone into a store I've been dying to go in and I may or may not have bought 2 ponchos...Listen, I'm cold. And they were on sale. 21 euro for two. I feel much more stylish now :)

The roomies got kebabs, but I wasn't all that hungry. I made dinner later...it was definitely an, um, Gillianasana original. Basically took random stuff out of the fridge and stir-fried it. Eggplant, zucchini, spinach, tomato, turkey and some pecorino (with balsamic vin, obviously):

Nothing world-shattering, but then again, after my lunch, nothing would have compared.

And tomorrow...the chocolate festival! Man, it's tough here:)

~Namaste~