Practically Perpendicula Pisa (October 11-12)

After a relaxing weekend in Valencia (October 9-10), Emily, Shauna, and I packed our backpacks (full of the essentials... clothes, food, and books :p of course) and set out to explore some other parts of Europe for the week.  First stop, Pisa, Italy!  After a 4 hour bus ride to Barcelona and a 6 euro RyanAir flight, we made to Pisa Monday night.  Upon landing we exited the plane directly onto the tarmac, which I've found is more common then being connected to the terminal directly, and we all boarded a bus to take us to the terminal.  The ride to the terminal was probably about 10 seconds long and the bus moved maybe 50 meters.  The most pointless transfer ever.  I thought all three of us were going to pee our pants we were laughing so hard from the pure pointlessness of what had just happened.  Everyone else on the bus seemed to think this was standard practice and gave us funny looks.  We entered the terminal to find the driver for our hostel holding a sign with my name on it, and we imagined we were celebrities being picked up for an important Italian event :p  The ride to our hostel was straight out of The Fast and the Furious.  I thought Spanish drivers were crazy, but nope, Italians may be worse.  According to Italian drivers, lanes, traffic lights, stop signs, and speed limits are pointless.  I don't know how, but we made it safely to our hostel and along the way we got a glimpse of the Arno river that cuts through Pisa, beautifully lit up by the moon.  Our hostel was located in Piazza Garibaldi, a piazza that's always full of students at night and home of Pisa's best gelato.

Our room in the hostel was the one with the porch full of flowers :]

Piazza Garibaldi - Giuseppe Garibaldi is considered a national hero in Italy

The next morning we went on a free walking tour provided by our hostel.  We got to see ALL of Pisa, not just the leaning tower, which is the only thing that most people think of when they picture the city of Pisa.  Our guide was a recent grad of the University of Pisa and had lived her whole life in Pisa.  Therefore, she was literally a walking encylcopedia of everything to do with the history of Pisa.  The best part of the tour was her accent.  When Italians speak English they pronouce every single letter and thus every English-speaking Italian sounds like they're from a mafia movie haha.  Here are some highlights from the tour:

Churches during the middle ages served both religious and political purposed.
Political advertisements for the University of Pisa are written on the front of
 this church near Piazza Garibaldi.

A very elite university in Piazza del Cavalieri, that only admists a handful of students every
year based on scores of a crazy difficult exam, and everything is free for those students
including tuition, housing, food, and more!  If only MSU was free for me.... :p

Piazza dei Miracoli (Square of Miracles) -
contains the Duomo (cathedral), baptistery, Campo Santo (cemetery), and the leaning tower. 

Piazza dei Miracoli

Arno River that cuts through Pisa

Tuttomondo by Keith Haring - One of Haring's most famous works, this mural
is on the side of a church and art students from the University of Pisa helped
Haring fill in the colors of the outlined characters.

After the tour we were starving, and what better food to eat in Italy than PIZZA?  We found an authentic little Italian restaurant near the Square of Miracles and scarfed down the most delicious margarita pizzas everrrr :]

Shauna and I with our pizzas, yummm!

After lunch, we returned to the Square of Miracles to take stereotypical leaning tower photos and to take a siesta in the sun, and also set off the explore more of the city on our own.

After a few failed attempts, like the lovely picture on the left, we managed to get a couple good stereotypical leaning tower photos.  The square was FULL of tourists like us and it was very amusing to see the different poses people were making with the tower.

Shauna, me, and Emily in the Squre of Miracles (aka the best people-watching/siesta-taking location in Pisa)

The baptistery in the Square of Miracles

Relaxing in a park we found

Our hostel had a deal with one of the bars in Piazza Garibaldi... buy one drink and get free appetizers!
It made for a perfect super cheap dinner for us :]

Nutella, cookie, and dark chocolate flavored gelato YUM!

We headed to bed fairly early that night because the next morning we woke up extra early to catch the train to Rome.

The Tuscany countryside during the train ride to Rome