Lucca lovin

After two weeks of being in Italy, today I finally feel in love with the country. I took a day trip to Lucca which is about an hour and a half away. It was absolutely gorgeous, and a much needed break from the hustle and bustle of the city. There was green! There was space to walk, without being run over by cars! It was more what you see in movies than Florence (in my mind) will ever be. One of my flatmates and I were going crazy with the lack of nature and the massive amounts of tourists we are daily battling, so when we saw the wide open feilds our hearts fluttered a little bit. After wandering around the city walls, we checked out the inner city streets. The cool thing about Lucca is that it preserved its city walls which are now over 2000 years old. There is a path on top of them so you can see both in and out of the city. We sat down for a nice meal, which I personally thing was the best thing i've had since I've been in Italy. We got taken to the garden seating which was under a stone canopy, pretty much like a courtyard. They gave us some breadsticks that were absolutely to die for, then I saw a dish on the menu that I just had to try--for you dad. I choose the polenta, I know it was kinda risky since I dont really like the stuff my Dad makes but since its apparently a pretty italian thing I decided to give "polenta con funghi" a try (polenta with mushrooms) We also ordered some wine and relaxed. The wine was amazing, I guess when you just buy the bottles that are 2 Euro at the grocery store, we have pretty low standards, but this was ACTUAL italian wine. Our meals came and they were amazing, We followed our huge meals up with a nice caffe latte, to energize us for some more wandering.

We ended up laying in a field for a bit just taking in the beauty surrounding us, simply breathtaking. Then wandered and caught the train back. Overall it was very relaxing which is what we needed because the course i'm taking is really intense. I've barely been able to see florence cause each day we are in class, and at night we are trying to study or accomplish all of our homework assignments. This week is going to be really rough, I need to job search on top of it all.

I believe I have my job preferences pretty undercontrol, althought it still does change everyday. I'm really interested in Turkey and maybe a few smaller/coastal cities here. Hopefully this week I'll get some leads.