To be read while sipping a cappuccino...

We’re back in Rome after a beautiful weekend in Tuscany! It was so nice to get out of the city and explore some new places… strange and wonderful to say that things were actually becoming sort of routine in Rome, so it was a welcome trip. It turns out we left Rome just in time to miss the president’s visit, during which time he stayed in our neighborhood of Trastevere! It would’ve been crazy to see, and we even saw clips of the riots in Rome on the news in Florence… but probably better our obviously American group wasn’t here.

Anyway… this weekend made me really happy. It kind of feels like I’m cheating or something, and I really hope I don’t get in trouble with Matt for falling in love with any city other than Rome. Rome is blowing my mind on a daily basis, but it’s not really the kind of city I’d choose to live in and I was beginning to go through tree, grass, and bird (the non-pidgeon kind) withdrawals. I’m also embarrassed to admit that I have yet to really master the map of Rome, and am still frequently disoriented… so getting off the train in cities like Florence, Pisa, Lucca, and Siena was like a breath of fresh air. I was able to establish my bearings pretty quickly in each place, and the scale of these cities is far smaller and more comfortable for me and my sorry navigational abilities. I was also able to find some parks and get my tree fix, and even heard some birds chirping in Pisa and Lucca. Florence had some of the gnarliest looking pidgeons you’ll ever see, by the way, which might be the city’s only downfall… otherwise it’s pure magic.

Lucca is probably the best-kept secret in Italy! I fell in love with that town, and am going to do my best to make everyone I know go see it for themselves. It’s a medieval walled city complete with several towers, piazzas, an elliptical amphiteatre that serves as the town’s center, charming side streets, and an impressive shopping district. I wandered alone throughout the city and was touched by the old people biking around with flowers in their baskets, young families playing together, and the overall kindness of the locals. I even happened upon a silent spot and stopped to take a few deep breaths of small-town air and sketch… I have a renewed love for sketching after this weekend, and have finally loosened up again and figured out how to get a drawing done in less than an hour. That’s big. It would seem my verbal communication floodgates have also opened, hence the unnecessarily long post here.

In case I sounded too critical of Rome earlier, I just wanted to end on a positive note. This is the experience of a lifetime, and Rome is making an impression on all of us that we probably can’t even comprehend yet. I’m loving every minute of this and am thankful for the opportunity…