I Love You, Cloud.

Italy is home to many beautiful monuments. It's easy to list a plethora of spectacles this beautiful country has to offer. Things like The Sistine Chapel, The Florentine Duomo and countless Renaissance masterpieces immediately come to mind. However, at about 1 p.m. or so, when the heat is beating on you turning your face the same color as the tomatoes in your caprese salad and the

sweat on your back is so bountiful that your silk shirt becomes completely transparent, the thought of walking another half mile to see the eighteenth marble sculpture of the day is almost as sickening as the thought of bathing in a tub of extra virgin olive oil. By Sunday, this pretty much summed up ourfeelings about another tiring excursion. But, being the troopers we are, Philip, Sam, Paige, Leigh and myself hoofed it out to the bus station in Greve to start what we thought would

be only a semi-long voyage to Siena. When we got to the bus stop we were greeted by what was surely the most uplifting sight since Noah and the olive branch...that's right my friends, above us was a soft, billowy perfectly puffy cloud. We were cool, we were shaded and we were ready for this adventure to begin. The plan: go to Florence train station via bus from Greve and then hop on the first train to Siena. Unfortunately, the lovely Tuscan countryside had other plans in mind. Upon reaching the Florence train station, we immediately rushed to a ticket window and purchased our tickets to Siena. Success! Well...almost. Upon reading the train departures, we found that a train to siena wouldnt leave for another hour and a half and wouldn't arrive until late in the afternoon. What's worse? The last bus to Greve left at 8 p.m. This left us a solid 45 minutes or so in Siena assuming all went according to plan (and our luck being the way it was...perfection was certainly a long shot.)

Alas...no Siena today! But what to do what to do? It seemed so unnatural to be in the Florence train station and not take a train ANYWHERE. We gazed at the train board and finally decided on a destination. "Hey guys...wanna go to Pisa?" Well...why not? Another set of tickets purchased, a swift walk to the platform and we were on our way...to Pisa? Ah well, at least spontaneity never killed the cat...I think. Well, for better or worse, off we went! And, for a while at least, everything seemed to be going well! That is, until the conductor came around to collect our tickets.

"Scusi, you did not validate your ticket." Um, validate my ticket? "Yes, you stamp at the platform to validate. It will be five euros please." Five euros? Really? For not sticking my ticket into that stupid random yellow machine to get it splotched with ink? Well, thanks to the unfulfilled ticket purchase to Siena, there were five euros that I did not have. Thanks to Leigh, we made it out of that one unscathed. A note the foolish who think they are wise...NEVER assume you know what you're doing in Italy

because more often than not there will be some random unneccesary detail that isn't communicated and you'll end up paying alot of money and getting sufficiently frustrated...and always validate your ticket!

Well, for better or worse, we finally made it to our destination. Welcome to Pisa. All in all, it was a charming little town. Not as small as Greve, but not as bustling as Florence. It was actually nicely refreshing. Since we had already been confused and touristy all day, we'd really just embrace it and step into the role. We took pictures with everything, clogged the streets and struck funny poses for no reason at all. After all...we really only had about two hours before our train left again for Floren

ce. Philip decided he wanted to take picutres imitating every statue

we passed by. The rest of us decided against it. Nope, there was only one thing on our list of things to do...go see the leaning tower of course! Now you may wonder why I have no pictures of this. The truth is, when I was thinking back on Pisa to write this, I hardly remembered seeing the tower at all. It just wasn't the focal point of this calamitous trip to Pisa. We looked at the tower for about ten minutes...took the necessary "holding up the tower" pictures (coming soon), and then headed back to the train. Well...at least we thought we were heading back to the train. Being the adventuresome types that we are, we decided to opt for the more "scenic" route if you will. We walked to the very outskirts of town and then began walking back in the general direction of the train station. Little did we know we were a solid ten minutes too far east (or west) from where the train station actually was.

When did we realize this? Just about fifteen minutes before our train was scheduled to leave. Leigh...in her professional fishing gear shirt and nifty sperry topsiders...was leading the way. We were walking as fast as we could but for some strange reason didn't seem to be getting anywhere. "Well guys..." Yes Leigh? "Time to start running."

Fantastic.

For some unclear reason, we seemed to have gone to Pisa on a day when there was construction EVERYWHERE. Naturally, that left very little room on the street for casual walkers and train sprinters to coexist peacefully. On behalf of all of us, I sincerely apologize to all the kind people we so rudely knocked out of our way...especially that nice family with the two little blonde kids eating gelato, I hope nothing spilled. We ran for a good five minutes from the bridge across the Arno all the way back to Pisa centrale, down the stairs, up some more stairs and finally onto our platform. Our train wasn't there yet. VALIDATE YOUR TICKETS GUYS! Ironically, we had the same conductor going back to Florence as

we did coming to Pisa. He saw my beautifully validated ticket and chuckled a little. At least I learned my lesson. But lets not count our tickets before theyre printed. Once we got back to Florence we still had to catch our bus back to Greve. And, once we were actually on the bus to Greve, we had to make sure we actually got to our destination. An hour and a half later and still not to Greve, we all started to question if we were going to make it back at all, or if our bus driver was lost. Fortunately, in Tuscany, one can go the wrong way down a one way street and not only make it out alive, but also somehow end up exaclty where you need to be.

Seeing the bus stop at Greve after a long convoluted voyage was a lot like seeing home after being at college for too long. Traveling the world on a whim certainly comes with its prices. We all came back with significantly fewer euros in our pockets, alot more sweat drenched into our clothes and a little pinker skin to show for it. From trains and buses and tourist brouchers, the world looks friendly and small. Paintings seem smaller in person and buildings

look a little more worse for the wear. Everything is perfect from far away. But in the grit and grind you remember the little things like the calories we burned running to the train, how delicious water tastes when its 99 degrees outside or how perfectly beautiful a shady cumulus cloud can be.

Thanks for the shade, thanks for the adventure and most of all, thanks Greve for being so wonderful to come "home" to.

I love you, cloud.

Liz