You've Just Been Rick Steve'd!!!!

Well, Long story short - I just had the greatest weekend!!!

On friday, the class took a day trip to Florence, which in and of itself is perfectly lovely and artistic (although I must admit that my first impression of smoke-heavy air and dog crap on the streets was not favorable).  We took the train from Orvieto, and sat in little 6 person compartments that made us all feel like we were en route to Hogwarts.  However, at the end of the day, rather than returning to Monastery San Paolo, Stephanie, Caitlin, Andrew,  Me, Kelsey, Megan M, and Kelly took a shorter, commuter train to Pisa!! ( I know that's not quite proper grammar, but I listed us all in the order we appear in the picture below :) )

We arrived at our hostel in Pisa around 7 pm, and while I dont have much experience in these places (this was my first time staying in a hostel) I think it was a very nice place.  The 6 girls got a private room on the 3rd floor, each with our own bed and lockers, and a nice, clean bathroom tiled in purple.  At one end of the room were some double doors that opened onto our own private balcony, situated right above Pisa main piazza!! All night there were street musicians and people talking and drinking and hanging out right below our room.  We also were almost directly above the best gelataria in Pisa - which definitely deserved its reputation!!

Once we were all settled in we decided to go to the leaning tower to get some cool night pictures and have a chance to see it before all the tourists got there the next day.  We stopped at a small family restaurant on the way, where we shared a liter of wine and had what is in my opinion the best meal of the entire trip thus far: I had gnocci with walnut sauce. Incredible. I can't even begin to say - 

This was followed by an hour or so at the leaning tower, a walk through town, and some incredible gelato devoured on the balcony.
The next morning we checked out by 8:15 and headed over to the little farmer's market for a loaf of bread, a block of cheese, and a pot of honey which served as an inexpensive, delicious lunch that we devoured picnic-style on the field of miracles.  We also met Kyndal - a UCLA student spending the day solo in pisa who joined us for a few hours.  After lunch we took a half hour bus to Lucca, which I think is my favorite place in Italy thus far.  Lucca is a small town, similar to Orvieto that is famous for being surrounded by a wall, roughly one story high and the width of a 2-lane road.  We rented bicycles and rode the 2ish miles around the wall- it was stunning.

 All the houses were freshly painted with bright window boxes, iron-wrought balconies and lovely roof-top gardens.  We only had the bikes for an hour so we split up and some did a second loop while Caitlin, Kyndal and I biked through the town and saw the clock tower, duomo and corso shops.  After this the 7 Orvieto students hopped back on the bus for Pisa, where we spent maybe 2 hours before taking the train to Florence, and then home.  We were completely exhausted by the time we got there, and then found that the funicolare (a gondola-like contraption on a track that takes you from lower orvieto up the mountain to the top) was CLOSED.  Thus, we embarked on the 45 minute hike up the side of the plateau and fell completely exhausted into bed.  All- in- all, I have had the loveliest of weekends, and am very very grateful to be spending Sunday in a happy little cafe, sipping lemon tea surrounded by friends.

By the way, the title of this post is courtesy of Kelsey, who carried around her Rick Steve's Italy guide book (and referred to it just as "according to rick...") and would make outlandish travel statements followed by "YOUVE BEEN RICK STEVED").
Ciao tutti!!

p.s. There were 2 things incredibly abundant during our weekend trip: Couples making out, and asians taking pictures holding up the tower of Pisa.  I have been sneakily documenting all of them (Kelsey and I are surreptitiously snapping shots of all the amorous couples).
Here are a few favorites:

I had to have a picture of these earmuffs