Under The Tuscan Sun... Quite Literally

I did eat dinner last night, I did watch Gladiator, and I most definitely did feel worse that night...

06April2005 - Wednesday

Today we went to Pienza. Last night I took a shower before I went to bed because on field trip days there is absolutely no hot water in the mornings and I learned this lesson pretty fast. So this morning Daniel got up to get in the shower at 7 and I woke up to his alarm. After he got in and a laid there for a few minutes not wanting to move, I finally managed to pull myself out of bed. I got dressed and all that good stuff and after he was finished in the bathroom I took care of business in there. When I was finished I had some time left because we didn’t have to be at the bus till 8:30am so I went downstairs and checked e-mail and stuff. I made it to the bus in plenty of time and managed to find a comfortable seat and settle in. Halfway there the guy behind be threw up which freaked me out a little because I wasn’t feeling so hot myself. We finally got there and visited a pretty cool renaissance church. Then we hiked all the way up the hill in time to visit a bar for a bottle of water before Paolo was telling us to hurry up and get back down the hill because the bus was leaving in 25 minutes… huh? This isn’t where we are spending the day? Apparently we had made a stop on the way to Pienza to see these two churched and a winery. So I quickly popped into the church at the top of the hill and snapped a few pictures, then went down the hill and popped into the winery momentarily (I’m not all that interested in wine...) before making my way down the hill and back to the bus… where I waited for another 20 minutes… Oh-well, no big deal. So then we went to Pienza and a short walk from the bus we were actually there. This church was kind of dull on the outside, but gorgeous on the inside. We also saw a little courtyard that was kind of interesting, and then went to lunch at this restaurant Paolo was taking us to. He boasted it to have the best lasagna you’d ever have and I’m a heck of a fan, so I was ready. Well it was absolutely delicious and a couple of hours later we left the restaurant stuffed like a thanksgiving turkey. It wasn’t long before we all found this nice little street behind the restaurant that had a wall running all the way along one side and was perfectly presented with the most beautiful sun. And what do college kids do when that first beautiful day of spring hits? Well they bask in the sun lazily and do nothing of course! So there we were probably a good 20-25 lounging all over this pedestrian walkway and wall. There was an incredible view of the valley and the sun was magnificent and we easily wasted a few hours doing nothing but laying around and being silly. After I’d had enough sunning I ventured back onto the main street. I found a few other people outside one of the gellateria’s in town and decided that gelato sounded superb. So a scoop of gelato later I was feeling nice and wandered through Pienza aimlessly with Jason (arch not all-major) and we ducked in and out of just about every shop in town. (Pienza is pretty tiny, so it wasn’t that big of a deal and only took about 45 minutes to do.) After we finished our window shopping we headed to the bus as it was time to go and then we came home. I got back and organized my pictures from the day and then went to dinner. It was okay, but I didn’t eat too much because I was still pretty satisfied from lunch. After dinner I watched Indiana Jones and the Lost Arc and then came down here to the lab. That’s about all I have for today and tomorrow I have two classes and not much to do. So… perhaps I shall update again. I still feel pretty cruddy if anyone was wondering, but I am trying to make the best of things despite it... I miss you all and hope you are having a good week.
Ciao!