Monday June 20

7:00am should not be a number we see on a clock for the rest of our trip. Last night once again Italy got the best of us. We spent a lot of time having wine by the fountain and exploring the city. A few of us had a second late dinner around midnight and then continued having some wine and hanging out in the central square of our hotel. I will officially say this: The hotel staff here hates our group and eventually would not even sell wine to anyone associated with us. Most of us got to bed around 4:30 so the early morning trip to Pissa this morning started off kinda rocky. It would be an understatement to say that Michelle and I a huge struggle today. Michelle and I missed breakfast to get a few extra minutes of sleep and then eventually headed to the bus to head to Pisa. Thank God for two hours bus rides.

We arrived at Pissa and walked a ways to get to where the tower was. It was sunny and about 90. After we got to Pissa and found the tower we took pictures and walked through the markets. Two hours of sleep, heat and a wine night in Italy made todays afternoon kind of unbearable. Most of us found a McDonalds with Air-conditioning and sat in there for about an hour. Michelle and I sat there for as long as we could. We met up with the group around 1:00 to head back to the bus and drive back to San Gimignano. I broke my flip flops while at the Tower of Pisa which made the way back to the bus a struggle. I had to walk barefoot with only one shoe on and the pavement was so unbearably hot because of the heat that my left foot got two blisters on my foot. I made it to the bus and thankfully the driver let me go dig through my other suitcase I keep under the bus permanently and grab a different pair of shoes. (We all get to do that so we do not have to haul multiple bags in to every hotel) Finally we were off and had another two hours of sleep!

We arrived back at our hotel and had to report down to the lobby at 4:00 for part of our grade which was a scavenger hunt of town. We have teams here that we have been in since we arrived that we use for academic purposes and if we get split up with can figure out who we are missing quick ha. Team two is Michelle, Nick, Adam and I. The scavenger hunt consisted of thirty pictures from around San Gimignano and we had to find each one and take a picture of our group infront of each place. It was actually pretty entertaining and we got off to pretty good start. After about an hour we had most of the scavenger hunt done. We asked a few locals for help but we were dying from running up the hills and steps in the heat so we eventually stropped for a shopping break and decided to call I quits, we knew we were not going to get first place anyways. The city we stay in is a hill city and everything is built or set up on hills or you have to climb steps absolutely everywhere. We came in fourth so we did not get free Gelato but we did get some pretty sweet action shots of our team at every place on Adams nice camera.

Lindsey, Kailee, Michelle and I went shopping and then found an Italian place for dinner. Devon joined us for dinner and then we all went back to our hotel to shower and regroup. Michelle, Baylee, Ridge and I then decided to go wine tasting and found a cool little place up on a side street of a hill. We were in the cellar looking around and the power went out. Scariest thing of our lives. After it went back on the owner came down to apologize and say he accidently did that. We wine tested and he gave us some free bread and olive oil. We sent the wine back to the hotel with Ridge to drop it off before the rest of the group came and met us at the castle. Michelle, Kyle and I made our way to the first castle ruin spot to watch the last Tuscany sunset of our trip :( We met up with Scott, Devon, Sarah, Amy and Ridge and headed over to the larger castle tower for a better view. We spent the rest of the night watching the sunset go down over the Tuscany hills and the vineyards. Eventually all 20 of us ended up there and just hung out. Devon, Amy and I left a bit after it got dark to go grab a salad and hung out on the central square until about 11:00. Some people stayed up at the castle to have some more wine and star gaze.

I am calling it any early night after the night we had last night. It is about midnight and I have to pack and get ready to leave for Austria early in the morning. We leave at 7:30 tomorrow morning and have a ten hour bus ride before we arrive at Salzburg, Austria. Italy has been an amazing country, It is absolutely beautiful. The towns are all so unique and there are always cultural parades and music festivals going on. People play instruments all over the city so wherever you are outside there is always music. Italy has definitely been one of my favorite places. We are excited for Austria but not excited to say goodbye to the rest of our group in four days :(