ITALY 2!

IF YOU ARE READING AN ITALY POST FOR THE FIRST TIME, SCROLL DOWN TO THE FIRST "ITALY!" POST.

After barely getting enough sleep, we woke in the morning to a water-less and fresh fruit-less breakfast. Oh, and if I didn't mention it before, my roomate was Kim. I love her..

So the second day we went to Lucca. Lucca is the birth place of Puccini and Boccherini and just all these people. It was pretty nice, but kind of boring at the same time...one thing that pissed me off was that instead of looking at the art in the churches (which was veeery interesting..not your typical gothic cathedrals; older, i think), we got to go see the back halls of the conservatry of music. The back halls and the offices. Whoop dee fricking doo. But other than that it was nice. My group was good for the most part and I had an acceptable lunch, although it was hard to eat. Bruschetta. On a huge piece of bread. it all fell off. And the tomatoes were not that great. I keep complaining about the food...and with all the walking it is now wonder I lost like 5 pounds while away. MY GOD I KEEP GOING OFF ON RANDOM SUBJECTS. SO back to Lucca. I bought a purse for myself because I really needed a bigger bag to put maps and dictionary and cameras and stuff in. It's nice. about $18 and poorer quality ones are like $20-25 at Old Navy. I also got my mom a little olive wood vase. The area in which Lucca is located is ver well known for its olive trees, as is all of Italy. There was this tower in Lucca with a garden on top, but I didn't get to see it.

Overall, I think Lucca was quite nice, but we were all crazy jet lagged and the organization was kind of messed up and we had troubles with my Visa Buxx. When I bought the vase (which was 6 euro) I think the lady didn't want to deal with a debit for that small an amount, so I think she made it not work.

That night was the Opening Ceremony. All the choruses met at the outside of the Tettuccio Spa and were handed candles. Then, a group of drummers and flag throwers marched up. This flag throwing thing is really incredible...

They dance around and the throwing is all in rythm with the drums and they are so coordinated and they throw the flags like all across the piazza...It is intensely cool.

So then we all walked up the hill to the other spa, the Toretta, and they did another show. I Then we all blew out our candles, or the others did because I didn't take one, and went into the spa. It was beautiful, but not nearly as nice as Tettuccio was going to be. I hadn't been inside it yet.

Inside the spa, the mayor of Montecatini Terme and some other officials all said welcomes and all the stuff they were expected to say. It was then slowly translated into three other languages besides Italian. German, French, and English. I actually understood most of the French. Then a local chorus performed. They were....quite unimpressive. Really didn't hold together, not good voices, but they looked like they were having fun, which is good. The did Va Pensiero, and we did Va Pensiero and we did better and they are Italian. Va Pensiero is basically right next to the national anthem of Italy in importance to the people. It was really ironic.

After all that we just went back to the hotel and crashed. I think that was the first night I was up until 2:30 AM talking with Kim...