4th of July at the Pisa Beach

Monday night was the Fourth of July, and I got to be an honorary American for the night. Katie and I headed down to Pisa in the afternoon after work, met up with our new friends, got some incredible pizza, and then headed to the American army base beach for swimming and dancing. It was a LOT of fun, and a really weird cultural experience... like a little slice of the states in Pisa, Italy. I kept talking to people in Italian and they'd respond with a "huh?". Like the guy who was trying to take a chair from our table, and I told him "Oh mi dispiace, usiamo tutti questi" and he said "huh?" and I said "oh, whoops, i mean... all ah y'alls chairs are taken". Then they proceeded to make fun of my "Canadian accent" and mimic me. Apparently to American people, we sound British?

Unfortunately it was raining so they had to cancel the fireworks... but they made up for it by providing a lifetime supply of glowsticks.

Here are some pictures from the last few days. Enjoy! In the meantime, I'm headed back to Florence tonight for some more Pizza O'Vesuvio :)

This is the place where the magic happens.

Me opening the greatest box ever in piazza signoria

Great orchestra in piazza Signoria

Katie and I... last night of Naima :(

New friends

At the beach in Pisa. Like the Gumby shirt I bought at the army base?

Getting ready for 4th of July fun!

Cloudy beach on the 4th of July

We clearly need more glowsticks...

24 Hour Adventure

So last night Katie and I decided at the last minute to head into Florence for some pizza from O'Vesuvio, AKA the pizzeria we discovered that makes pizza that tastes like angels. Our pizzeria expedition turned into epic 24 hour adventure. We got into Florence at 6pm, got our pizza, and ate it in piazza Signoria where an orchestra series was also going on. After that, I remembered that it was the final night that my favourite bar, Naima, would be open, since they're closing for renovations/the summer holiday season (in Italy, many businesses close in late July and throughout August since most Italians go away to the sea) so we went to Naima where, as always, we made tons of new friends, including the bouncer who we talked to for about an hour and discovered that he also makes jewellery. Interesting.

Needless to say, we missed the last train back to Pistoia, so we stayed at Naima all night. Later on, we met an awesome group of Americans and ended up hanging out with them. A few of the guys work at the US army base in Pisa, a couple of them study biology in Florence, and a girl named Lisa whom they had just met 2 hours prior to meeting us is studying Italian in Florence for the summer. It was a wild chance encounter that we all met each other like that, because we ended up having the greatest time with them and feeling like we'd known them forever. We all talked for a bit, and then at 6am they said they were heading back to Pisa and we were invited to come, so we agreed. There wasn't room in their car for 9 of us, so Katie, myself, Lisa and another guy (Matt) took the train and Mike picked us up. When we got there, we went to the army base so Katie and I could buy bathing suits. Then after a delicious Chinese all-you-can-eat lunch, Katie, Mike, Lisa and I went to the beach at Pisa and spent a glorious few hours enjoying the sun, the breeze, the water, and the fabulous people watching.

So that was my weekend! Tomorrow after work we're going to go back to Pisa to a 4th of July party on the beach with our new friends.

Now I'm going to try to go to sleep, despite the incredibly loud karaoke event going on in the village at the bottom of the hill. (Our apartment is in a sort of sound tunnel, so it essentially sounds like the karaoke is taking place in our apartment. Agony.)

Ciao for now!

PS. Unfortunately my camera battery died partway through the night, so I'm counting on Katie's camera for some good shots. I'll grab pictures off her later this week and share if there's anything good