The Girlfriend

I went down to Italy to visit the girlfriend over Easter. She is studying in a small, walled, Tuscany hill town called Castiglion Fiorentino, known by all the local college study abroad students as "Casti". Since the town is so small, there is no airport in it and the only way to get there is by regional train. After booking my flight three months in advance that was going to land in Florence at 8:40 pm, we find out that the last regional train from Florence to Casti leaves at 9:22. So when I landed, I rushed to a taxi and headed for the train station where CC was waiting for me. I got there at 9:18. We bought the tickets and sprinted to the platform. I have never seen CC run that fast, I was left trailing in her wake. We reach the platform only to find that the train left 2 minutes early and there is already another train in its spot. It was 9:21... Luckily for us, there was a inter city train, which is much faster than a regional train that went to one of the stations on the path of our regional train, Arezzo. We hop on the IC train and beat the regional train to Arezzo by 20 minutes, letting us hop on the regional for the one extra stop to Casti.

It was dark when we arrived, but one thing that I could see was the tower at the top of the hill, lit from spotlights from the ground around it. It was beautiful on top of the hill way off in the distance. Then CC informed me that that was where we were walking to. I, being accustomed to every town in Germany having a large public transportation system, asked if there was a bus or a tram to take us there. She just laughed at me and we started our long trek up the hill. I was given my own private room at the hotel/dorm that CC was staying in, it wasn't the most lavish place but its modest accommodations were all that I needed. After waking up for class that morning at 7 am, 3 hours of class, then flying for 4 hours, training(taking the train) for 2, and then climbing the hill for another, I hit the pillow hard and didn't wake until the sun streamed through my window.

The view out of my window was amazing. I faced a courtyard of the dorm but it only had three sides to it. The open side was a drop off and then a view of the entire Tuscan valley around me from my vantage point on top of the hill. Then I had to go to class. I went to one of CC's organizational communications classes. Apparently they have to write papers, so the class discussion of the day was about how to write this super specific kind of paper about people watching (or at least that was the gist I got from their discussion). For the entirety of the class, I was continuously reminded why I chose to go into math and science instead of liberal arts, all because of the writing. But the teacher was a really nice guy and only threatened me with a pop quiz (luckily he didn't follow through). After class we explored the town, walked through the local market, and I was shown all the hangouts and study cafés that I had seen in so many Facebook pictures.

The next day we went to Florence. I love Florence. I loved it 4 years ago and loved it again when we went back this time. We mostly just walked around the city. We saw the Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio, and the Piazza della Signoria. One thing that we couldn't find was the store Andrew's Ties that we had seen 4 years before. I was sad. But I did get to show CC at least one new ting about the city, the San Lorenzo Mercato Centrale, which is a HUGE local food market in a large building in the middle of town. The meat stalls were always my favorite, they have whole chicken with the heads still attached, skinned and drained pig carcasses hanging from meat steaks, and even whole small rodent looking things.

That night we celebrated CC's birthday (which was actually on Tuesday but I was going to be gone before then). We went out to a very nice local restaurant in Casti, shared a bottle of red wine and a sampler starter of sliced meats, cheeses, beans, and soups, each got our own pasta for the first course, and then shared a second course of beef wrapped in ham and a desert of chocolate cake in a kiwi sauce. It was a-ma-zing. The whole meal was delicious and our server was super helpful with us not being the best of Italian speakers.

The rest of the weekend was very relaxing and I loved getting to spend time with CC and getting to meet all of her new friends. I felt very welcome and loved every moment I was there. Can't wait to see her again and her parents at the end of the semester.