Pisa, Italy

One of my friends e-mailed me in late October to tell me that she was a nanny in a town near to Pisa.  So I decided Abbey and I should have one last trip in Europe, so I booked a ticket for a 4-day trip to Pisa.  Bare in mind, this trip took place Monday, Nov. 29 through Thursday, Dec. 2.  Which was a week and a half before we were set to move.  It probably wasn't the best planning on my part, but you only live once, right?  Stu encouraged me to take advantage of this last chance, too. 

I have been assured by my friends that I have had horrible luck traveling in Europe.  I hate to use this blog as a place to complain about my experiences, but I feel that I must tell the complete story!  :)  I will not elaborate in great detail... it snowed the day we departed, so our first flight was delayed 2+ hours and we missed our connection.  As a result, we landed in Pisa at 10:30 pm instead of the planned 5:00 pm.  Mindy (my friend) was thinking in advance, though... she got to Pisa early and found a great hotel close to the airport so we could immediately collapse into bed.

There it is.  The tower is actually the cathedral's Campanile, or bell tower.  Most of the larger Italian cathedrals have a Campanile.

The gorgeous baptistry and Romanesque cathedral.  

These bronze doors to the cathedral were amazing.  Each panel depicted a scene from the Bible.

 The Abbey Picture Squat:

We bought our train tickets to the town where my friend lives, and this is what we encountered when we reached the tracks.  Not only were the train unions on strikes, but the students were as well.  It was clear we weren't going to be getting there by train!

 Yummmm... gelato!

 Drooling over Italian shoes.

We ordered some seafood and Abbey attacked it.  This is her eating an whole shrimp (eyes, shell and all).  Halfway through I panicked with worry over a shellfish allergy.  She doesn't have one.   Notice the pizza in the background that I ordered for Abbey?  The pieces that were eaten were consumed by Mindy and me.

This was a whole fish (I panicked again, worrying about the bones):

 Our hotel had a beautiful rooftop garden.

Our trip back wasn't great.  We were delayed even longer.  We were supposed to get back at 11:30 in the morning, and didn't arrive home until 8:30 pm.  Oh well.  The redeeming part was being able to see the sun set over the Alps as we flew over.   I of course also had a wonderful time hanging out with my friend.  We had such a great time talking and praying together.  Thanks for taking good care of us, Mindy!