Halfway down this collage on the right is a photo of the four of us at lunch
From left to right: Maggie, Tanya, Diana and Francesca
I realized the other day that while I have made minor allusions here and there to my recent holiday in Italy, I haven't shared much about it. Well, that's going to change. After the UK, Italy has been the fantasy travel destination of choice since I was a growing girl. Thus, it really was a dream come true when my uni friends Tanya and Maggie (also fellow Americans) invited me to go with them for a ten-day tour of the country.
On 5 April 2011 we flew into Pisa where our adventure began. We were blessed with very warm, verging on hot, weather. I was struck with two impressions upon arriving in this gorgeous country. 1- the architecture is charming! 2- I'm really confused! It had been nearly seven years since I had traveled to a non-English-speaking country, so it was quite jarring to suddenly be thrown into a culture where I didn't understand a thing! I developed a new-found gratitude for my ability to read; staring at boards of Italian in which I was lucky to decipher the odd word was extremely frustrating. Literacy, in any language, truly is a gift.
Luckily for us, Maggie's former flatmate (and native Italian) Francesca was there to greet us. She served as a fantastic guide/translator and immediately led us to a nearby restaurant for a lovely outdoor meal. Afterwards, I had my first Italian gelato. I debated long and hard over which option to choose and ultimately settled on a caramel gelato. It was delicious, though I learned later in the trip that I prefer the fruit flavours.
From there, we traipsed through the streets of Pisa, making our way to the infamous Leaning Tower. That's up next on the Italian Adventure agenda!
No comments:
Post a Comment