LUCCA and PISA Day 5: FIRST MASS AND LEANING TOWER OF PISA

9am: Italian mass at San Lorenzo Church with 7 others, including Señora Angela, confessions by locals were done before to mid-mass, no wine given, read and sung Italian, everything else was done like that in the U.S., chandeliers present and beautiful Renaissance paintings too! mainly 40+ and elderly Italians present. Why were there not much young adults and kids? We thought Italians encourage their young to attend mass to carry on a strong Catholic tradition, but this was not the case at this particular church.

10-1pm: class

1:30pm: Margherita 8" diameter Pizza finished by the steps of a church, Strolled around the village. Majority of the shops were closed. Tiramisu Dark choco cheesecake for €1.50 sweet, not like the sour taste of the U.S. cheesecakes.

2:30pm: booked and bought train tickets for Florence to Rome this weekend with a group.

4-5pm : Leaning tower of Pisa

Baked under the hot sun, while we waited at the Pisa train station to Lucca, (missed 1st train- had no labels, and they did not really update well the monitors; we could not get our tickets from the automatic ticket area, as they're all in Italian- a local woman and a gentleman helped).

6:30pm: Dinner- calzone with ham, sausage, cheese, more Gelato- mixed berries and banana, so refreshing! Better than most smoothies made in the U.S., Bumped into our professors on our way back, while they headed to a local concert and wanted some gelato as well, Refilled our water bottles at the local, fresh fountain, walking distance from our Ostello.

[with the Leaning Tower of Pisa, pic by Je]

[Freshly baked ham, sausage, and cheese Calzone]