Saint Leo University

Wow! I really have not written in a while. It has been so hectic here between classes and seeing everything in Rome and going to so many different places. Two weekends ago, a couple friends and I went to Tuscany and spent the weekend traveling from Rome to Siena to Pisa and, finally, back to Rome. The train ride wasn’t too bad… a little over three hours. We went to Siena first and it was beautiful there were hills and mountains all around the city (there are no mountains in Florida). The churches there are the most ornately decorated churches that I have ever seen!!! We went to the house of Saint Catherine of Siena and saw where she is buried and then we went to the huge piazza in the middle of town where two of my friends decided to be adventurous and climb the 550 steps to the top of a tower that over looks the entire city. I stayed in the square and watched our stuff and wrote postcards to my family. And of course, the girls that we are we had to shop. When we left Siena, we went to Florence and got settled into our hostel for the night (for those that don’t know hostels are like a cross between a hotel and a dorm room) and then went exploring. We found Piazza Repubblica where the city had set up a movie screen on the side of the building. Nothing was playing at the time but we ate at a little caffe in that piazza despite the lack of cinematic entertainment. The next day we went to the Accademia to see the David and ended up seeing a lot of really cool musical instruments, paintings, and sculptures. We also went to the Uffizi where the Birth of Venus is, but ended up waiting in line for twenty minutes without moving and then gave up. We then saw the Duomo and ate really good marzipan (I would not recommend eating it the next day though!!). On Sunday, we went to see the leaning tower and proceeded to take cheesy tourist pictures holding up the tower. Riding back the Italian people on the train were amused with our attempt to amuse ourselves by playing Hangman.

I love trains!!!