Ok, here’s the rest of the Europe trip… Part 2: Italy.

2003/10/21 – Tuesday

Tuesday started early. Very early. I don’t recall how early, but I had been waking up at around 0900, and it was more like 0500, or maybe it was 0430, so we could catch our flight to Pisa.

We arrived in Pisa just in time for the rain. The flight was a bit early, as the other RyanAir flight, and again customs were pretty fast, and we were there before our ride – but not much. Max (aka Massimilliano if you want the full first name, since Italians don’t use x’s), picked us up since he was taking the week off work before his wedding. With him was Alicia, his soon to be stepdaughter. Our original plan was to stop by a small town on our trip back to Florence, but due to the very hard rain – enough that we were driving considerably slower than normal, we didn’t have as much time and the desire to get soaked.

We got back, and hung out at Max’s new apartment. Spent some time catching up on things, and relaxing. We also did some exploring around the area. I love the random squares scattered about the city. Daniella, Max’s future wife, came home from work and we all had lunch… frozen Italian food, much better than I expected. Sometime after lunch, we went to Grazia & Francesca’s apartment. We never have traced out how we’re all related, but somewhere along the line we are. We hung out there, catching up with them all. We determined that we would go to a Chinese restaurant, fairly fancy restaurant, very nice. I know, I know, Chinese in Italy? But yes, that’s where we went. It was good food, we had plenty. We met up with Alberto, Grazia’s son (Francesca’s brother). After dinner Ryan & I went to his apartment, since he had 2 spare twin beds for us there. Mom stayed with Grazia.

Ok, so I lied… I’m tired, another long day at work, I’ll try to finish up the trip this weekend. In other news, the concert was great. Very loud, my ears are still ringing some. I liked all the songs by The Format, and Something Corporate. Rx Bandits were ok, I liked their use of Brass instruments (trombone & sax), but most of their songs didn’t suit my fancy too much.

While I’m on random commentary, the Chinese restaurant makes more sense when you know that Florence has had a problem with an influx of illegal Chinese immigrants. They work in factories, and live in factories, and fish in the Arno river and cook their findings on the banks, since they have no homes. It’s a major problem for the economy, since they don’t pay any taxes. Also, since the quality of the products they make is lower quality than the true Italian made products, the Italians are worried about the reputation of their products.