I come to you, the reader, live from the jazz bar across the Arno, because our lovely program which promised us Wifi, once again, did not come through. However, I'm staying positive and living in jazz bars/on campus until this all gets sorted out.
Anyway, we went to Pisa yesterday. It's a cool city....for no more than 4 hours. Small, quaint, lots of people trying to sell you watches and trinkets and what not, and a leaning tower. Surprisingly, nothing else was leaning. There was no "Leaning Gelato Stand of Pisa" or "Leaning Big Church of Pisa". Quite a disappointment. But I guess that's why the city get's so much attention and people flock from all over the world (mainly Asia as it seems) to see the Leaning Tower. In the words of Lewis Black, in order to stimulate an economy, you just need to build a "big fucking thing. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as it's big, and it's a fucking thing. And people will come see the big fucking thing." That's where the Leaning Tower of Pisa is unique. It's big, and apparently it's a "fucking thing". BUT, it happens to be leaning. Extra points go out to the leaning tower. We also speculated that if that tower had not been leaning, it would just be another tower. We even took one of those touristy pictures....
Climbing up the tower was kind of trippy because it's leaning. You see everyone standing perpendicular to the ground, but the walls are slanted. It's kind of like an ancient fun house. In a nutshell (or leaning tower), that was Pisa. It was cool. Donna has the pictures from Siena, so I'll upload those when I get them.
On a semi related note, here is the view from our balcony at sunset. It's gorgeous. Kind of makes up for not having internet at our apartment. In case you were wondering, the Duomo is on the lefthand side of the first picture. The second picture is the view towards the hills and the Arno River. Straight west.
We're working on some trips. London next weekend. HOPEFULLY Copenhagen this weekend. Possibly Amsterdam in two weekends. We'll see.
Also, as this blog is indeed entitled, The Ignorant Wine Snob, I hate to not mention anything about wine. We realized the best thing to do in Italy is order the house wine at restaurants. It's much cheaper and just as good. But we've had some very delicious bottles.
From the jazz bar being jazzy,
Joel
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