Bologna, Pisa, & Florence

March 8. 2019

What a busy 72 hours.

Day 1 began with a train at 9:20 from Torino to Bologna. After 2.5 hours on the train we made it to our destination. Bologna is known for their delicious food, knowing this we planned 3 hours for us to get food and then get on the train to head to Pisa. We went to an Osteria and I ordered lasagna, it literally MELTED in my mouth. I was so so good. Since we only had 2 hours in Bologna we did not have much time to look around, but we walked along the main street and did some window shopping. We then had to hop onto our train to Pisa.

We got to Pisa around 6ish which gave us just enough time to go see the leaning tower and then buy some fake Ray Bans from the street vendors. It was so fun bargaining for the sunglasses. The street vendors all come and try to sell you at least one thing and they then try to act like you are getting a great deal. I ended up getting 8 pairs of Ray bans for 60 euros!! Then we went to back to the train station and got some McDonald's for dinner before we headed to our final destination of the day!! Florence Ya'll!!!

Study is normally anything but glamours especially while traveling basically every weekend. Everyone always sees the pretty pictures on social media, but no one ever tells you about the ugly truth.

Going off of that... after an exhausting and long day of a total of 5 trains... we made it to Florence, Italy. We walked about 15 minutes to our airbnb and called our host to get the buzzer to go up to the place. While on the phone our host goes "That can't be. someone is already in there...". Luckily it was not our fault, but hers, she accidentally double booked the room. SO frantically she tried to help us find a place for us to stay. We walked around from hostel to hostel trying to see if they had an extra bed. Finally an hour and a half later.. 11:55 PM a friend of her friend had an empty room for us to stay!! It worked out so we stayed there for the first night and then the second night we stayed in our original airbnb.

The next morning we got up and went to a few stores and then to the check-in spot for our half-marathon (my second goal of this semester was to run a half-marathon in Italy). We got our race day packets and then dropped everything off to our airbnb. We then had a cute lil lunch. I had some gnocchi (it had become my favorite pasta of all time)!!!!

That day we scheduled a wine tasting in Chianti. I was so excited because we are in wine country so we HAD to go on a wine tasting!!! The tour was about 7 hours long and we got to try about 8 different wines. We also had olive oil, balsamic, and vinegar. We also visited 2 different cities in Tuscany. I definitely had some of the best wine on this tour!!! There was a white sparkling wine that tasted like a crisp green apple, talk about YUMMY!!!!

Fun fact: To be considered a Chianti Classico the wine must be 70-100% Sangiovese grapes. Also the color of the grape doesn't always decide the color of the wine. It depends on how long the skin is left one the grape during the process.

Once we got back to Florence we meet up with our friend from our study abroad trip and had dinner. I got ravioli and Aida got gnocchi and we shared it.... AMAZING!! Italy pasta is just so different from anywhere else.

Sunday morning was RACE DAY!!!!!! I cannot express how excited I was for this! I just can't believe that my dreams were becoming a reality. I went through a lot of doctors appointments (in Italy. to doctors that spoke little English. such a mess but I was determined to run.)

Race day was PERFECT running weather. It wasn't too hot and it wasn't too cold. Just the right temperature. The course was basically flat the entire time with maybe two little hills which weren't too painful. The course took us basically around all of Florence and since it is a smaller city we looped around it twice. I was EXHAUSTED at the end because I kept a 10 minute pace for the most part until the last 1.5 mile. I was so tired, but I managed to keep running the entire time! No stopping!!! I didn't make a PR, but I am so proud of myself because I only ran approximately 6 times as my training lol.

After the race we went back to the airbnb and got a hot shower and made sure to stretch to make sure our muscles didn't cramp too much. We wanted to grab some food because we were STARVING, and so we went to McDonald's, but the line took FOREVER and we ended up missing our train. We luckily were able to book another train for that day but instead of a 4 hour one it was a 7 hour one... again the not so glamours study abroad stories. On top of that both of us were so so sore and could barely walk, but we made sure that we kept drinking water and kept stretching. Finally after traveling for hours we made it back to Torino!!!

Torino has become home and I love it so much. I love coming home from a travel weekend and sleep in my own bed with all of my own things. I am definitely going to be very sad when I have to leave, but I am so grateful that I have learned to love this place and call it my home!! :)

Signing off.

Kayla Nicole