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Published: October 9th 2006
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This morning we were off to go check out Pisa with its famous leaning tower before heading off to Florence. I was glad to be leaving this nasty hotel which was by far the worst of the trip. I slept above the covers last night after noticing red bumps on my legs from the previous night. My suspicions were confirmed this morning when I heard other people complaining about bed-bugs in their beds as well. We arrived in Pisa around mid-day and were only given about 45 minutes to check the place out. It was quite a warm day out today and the place was crawling with tourists. The first thing you notice when walking towards the leaning tower is the many tourists doing the typical tourist pose of trying to hold back the tower. Of course, we had to partake in this and try out a few poses for ourselves. You can definitely see the tilt in the tower when looking at it. Unfortunately, we weren't able to go inside and climb it. They only let in a set amount of people and you have to get reservations far in advance. Besides the leaning tower, there wasn't really much
else to do here. There was a cool looking church next to the tower as well as tons of makeshift stands selling the typical tourist kitsch. Many of us in the group were complaining about only having 45 minutes to check it out. However, unless you wanted to bargain through the many stalls, what else was there to do in this place? It wasn't very long before we were back on the bus towards Florence.
We arrived at the hotel at around 3 pm and had a few hours to relax before dinner. The room at this hotel was by far the smallest of the tour. The beds were made for 5 year old children and my bed wasn't evenly flat! It was a sub-par dinner yet again but what else do you expect from the included meals. Not much was planned tonight as Matt was going to take us into Florence to go to the Red Garter Pub. This small hole in the wall seemed to exist solely for the use of Contikiers while in Florence. Karaoke seemed to be the main activity here but not feeling in the mood to socialize and party, I decided I
was just going to walk around and soak in Florence at night. I was joined by Patrice, Mar, and Amy; who apparently weren't in much mood to socialize either. We decided to get some gelato across the street. I had the pistachio which turned out to be a big disappointment. I should have stuck to the cherry flavor that I've been getting while here. We wandered the streets, walked around various piazzas, and just soaked in as much as we could. I was fully obsessing on trying to find the building where Hannibal Lecter disembowled the inspector in the movie Hannibal. Unable to find it, we decided to take a break from our wandering and relax at an outdoor cafe to have a coffee or hot chocolate. Apparently, today's dinner wasn't enough for Patrice as she proceeded to order an entire pasta dinner! It was nice just sitting here and doing nothing but people-watch. We have been so on the go the entire trip that rarely did we have a chance to soak in the local atmosphere. Patrice informed us that she was getting up early in the morning to join Sandra and Andrea to get into the Uffizi Gallery.
Apparently if you don't have advanced reservations, there is a huge line and wait to get in. We met back up the Red Garter Pub, where those in our group appeared to be having a great time singing karaoke. It seemed that most everyone just decided to stay here tonight. We caught the coach back to the hotel and called it an early night
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