Around Italy in 3 days

This is the story of 3 people daring to take on northern Italy in less than 36 hours. Insert dramatic music here.

Anyway as the story goes, I left Kartauseville with 2 other people at about 7:30 on the Thursday night. We also left with everyone else who was going to either Venice or Florence, and that turned out to be a whole lot of people. That would have been fine except for the fact that the train we were all taking happened to already be full. The 2 people I was with absolutly refused to take part in the mass of people that were standing in the small hallway of the train waiting for someone to get off and take their spot. They insisted on getting a sleepercar. I protested against this and said I would remain in the hallway but they would have none of it, and I ended up in the sleepercar for free! Hooray! It was very nice, I got my own blanket and my very own breakfast, and most importantly, my very own coffee. Morning in Venice was very nice, we were out before most of the shops were open, and most of the people out, so we made it to St. Mark's Square without any trouble. When in Venice, just follow the signs, its that easy. After we'd walked around the square a lot, listened to the bands playing music, taken lots of pictures, taken pictures for other people, and fed the birds, the people I was with wanted to go on a gondola ride, and I didn't want to, but they wouldn't leave me behind, and since the price was by ride and not by person, I got to go for free! I sat on the side in this really awkward chair, and I thought I was going to fall in. It wasn't so bad on the little streams in the town, but once we got out into the open water were the big boats were, I was sure that it was goodbye to me, but no, we did not tip over.

After about 5 or 6 hours we got back onto the trains and headed off to Padua. There we took a bus to the Cathedral, and we spent some time looking around and praying. St. Anthony is buried there, and so is St. Luke, though I'm not sure exactly which St. Luke it was. Outside there were lots of carts of things for people to buy, so we looked at the carts. Then after about 4 hours we got back on another train and went to Pisa. By this time it was night and we went to sleep.

In the early morning we woke up and caught the bus to the plaza with the leaning tower. I was happy to discover that I am not the only person on this earth is slightly dissappointed when things look absolutly the same in real life as they do in pictures. I feel like my trip has been somewhat waisted and I would have been fine just looking at the pictures. Oh well, we had a good time there. There were also a lot of carts there, and TONS of guys selling watches and other counterfeit things. We ignored them. Anyway the tower looks just like it does in pictures, you don't really have to go and see it. Its a little weird to be looking at it though because it looks like its going to fall over any second, but it doesn't fall, it just stands there. We took some fun pictures, pushing the tower over, hugging the tower, kicking the tower, leaning with the tower, etc. Then we looked at all the fun carts with their fun touristy things. You are were really close to getting your Christmas presents from there but it didn't end up happening. About 3 hours later we got into yet another train, and headed off to Rome to make it in time for the 5PM check in.

That night my music group sang at mass, except that half my group is from Ave, and Ave Maria did not come to Rome with the Franciscan kids, so we had to borrow people from other groups, it wasn't really fun, but we did it. The best part though was at dinner. Every night at this really nice hotel we stayed at they fed us 2 courses, pasta then meat, with tons of bread, and wine, and a dessert at the end. I love Italy. Love it.