Sunny Day in the City

Lara, Micah and I went downtown today. We caught a free tour of the parliament (Stortinget) at one. We actually got lucky because we were a couple people over the limit but they let us in anyway. The tour wasn't very elaborate and I knew a lot of the information about the Norwegian parliament, but I did learn a few new things. For instance, I didn't know that the king in Norway can vote, but it has become precedent that he doesn't. And the king's current granddaughter will be the country's first queen.

After our tour we walked up Karl Johans Gate and discovered today there was some kind of event because all of the stores had outside stands and sales. There were so many people. It was ridiculous! We went to the second hand store, UFF to find Lara's little brother a Norwegian sweater and did a little street shopping. Well, Micah did most of the shopping. Lara and I got hot dogs and coke. Coke is doing a promotion where each bottle has a name on it...They say: "Share a coke with ____." The one I got today said "Prinsessa." We got one that said "Familien" yesterday for our last family dinner (ironic) and when Sara and I were in Italy she got one that said "Sara" (even more ironic). 

 This is domekirke (church) in Oslo. Never been in but it's pretty cool inside, especially the art on the ceiling.

Lara and I really wanted ice cream. I just found out today that they don't have soft ice cream (soft-is) in Germany! Only on special occasions. What the heck?! So we got soft is at Narvesen and took it to Slottsparken to eat. On the way we stopped at the University building where they were doing a special viewing of one of the halls because it had Munch paintings in it and it is Munch 150 anniversary fest now. 

 Micah looks so small compared to the painting.

 This is inside the University building. They are currently doing renovations so I had never been inside. It is the original university building, opened in 1811 I believe.

We spent a good amount of time there just sitting in the park. It was really warm in the sun, but quite cold in the shade because it was windy today. 

 Oh, this is a picture I took at 3:30 am this morning. I woke up to go to the bathroom and even though my curtains were shut and pretty dark (Thank you to Sara Cunningham) there was still light creeping in from underneath. (this picture should be after the next two pics which are of the park)

Florence, San Gimignano

Florence seemed like a much more people-friendly city (whatever that means). The woman who owned the hostel we stayed in said that more Italians live in Florence than some of the other big Italian cities. She was suuuper nice. We got there and she offered us a coffee, gave us a map and showed us all the places she enjoys eating dinner and more importantly, gelato! She was very helpful, somewhat like a mom. She would check in with us at night and make sure we didn't need anything. She even packed us a breakfast to go the morning we left for Rome. 

Florence also has a very large Duomo like Milan. I thought it was even more magnificent than the one in Milan. We only just stepped inside that one. The inside definitely did not do the outside justice. We also saw a ton of statues, including David. We walked to the Ponte Vecchio, a neat looking bridge. Supposedly it was the only one to survive WWII. For lunch we went to a sandwich place that ended up being more of  a stand built into the side of a building. They made the sandwiches right in front of you and you could get a glass of wine to go with it for a couple euros. That afternoon we got gelato at one of the places recommended by the hostel owner and it was definitely one of the best gelato places we went to. I got some sort of cookie flavor there and it was amazing. We also went up to San Michelangelo Piazza. This required climbing a lot of stairs, but the view was worth it. It was thundering as we were climbing the stairs and it started raining at the top so we didn't stay long. For those of you who may not know, Florence is the leather capital of Italy. There was a whole section of streets near our hostel lined with stands selling purses and belts and jackets. Sara ended up buying an awesome jacket. Can't wait for her to show it off at home.

The next day we took a train to San Gimignano, a small medieval town on a hill. To get there we had to take a train to Poggibonsi train station and then bus from there. On the train we met a guy from Delaware. San Gimignano was my other favorite place. It was a little more touristy than I was expecting and thus, more than I would have liked but it was so cute and old. It had a great footpath surrounding the city walls that provided an awesome view all the way around. I think I read that 14 of the 72 original towers are still standing. Here we also visited one of my favorite gelato places. I got mixed berry and strawberry and it was sooooo good on such a warm day. The berry kinds are not like ice cream. They more remind me of a smoothie-how there is real fruit in it and it is more icy, but still creamy. Gelato for the most part is just like ice cream but a little creamier and it doesn't get hard if it's a good kind. I don't have much to say about San Gimignano, just that it was a very romantic little town. 

Lucca and Pisa

Lucca was one of my favorite cities out of the ones we visited. It was smaller and much less touristy, though there were certainly many tourists around. It was surrounded by the old town wall, which made it nice because you couldn't get too lost. The best part was the Bed and Breakfast we stayed at. I had found it on tripadvisor originally and it had gotten really good reviews. It was in an old apartment that the couple who owned it had bought and fixed up. It was obviously old-wooden doors, pull-down toilet flusher, very old light switches. I loved it. The owners were very kind, and so was another woman by the name of Nattaria (sorry about the spelling). The best part though, was the breakfast. We were so amazed the first morning. First we were asked what we wanted to drink-tea, coffee, cappuccino, juice. Cappuccino? Of course. Then it just seemed like they kept bringing more and more. Each morning we got a basket of very hard toast and some kind of cookie-bread thing. The rest different. One morning we had strawberry cake, another lemon cake, chocolate chip muffin, pecorino cheese (so good), prosciutto, walnuts, yogurt (also awesome, as yogurt seems to be in Europe), and more.. Another great thing about breakfast was that it was on the terrace and you had a nice view of the buildings in Lucca.

The first day we explored Lucca. It was beautiful in the morning-sunny and warm. You can walk on the town walls so that's exactly what we did. It's more like a park up there. On the corners there are picnic tables and such and the path is more like two park paths-one for bikes and the other a small footpath. We went in a couple churches and climbed up two towers-one was the clock tower and I'm not sure what significance the other had. They were both great views though. We also went to the  botanical gardens because we got in with our towers ticket, but that wasn't exciting at all.

Our trouble in most places we visited was deciding on a place to eat. We wanted something authentic, not too touristy, but also not expensive. The second night in Lucca we took forever to decide and it just didn't end up meeting our expectations. I had four cheese pasta-which was good, just not that good. Overall in Italy I wasn't overly impressed with the food. It was all really good, but I had heard it was great and different. Maybe we just never found the right place... We did have gelato twice that day to compensate though. :)

The second full day in Lucca we took a train to Pisa which was about an hour away. Basically all we did was go to the Piazza with the tower. We bought a ticket to the tower (very expensive) and you also got into the cathedral. Both were nice but not overly impressive. The view from the tower was not as good as the towers in Lucca in my opinion. Yes, I know the other towers weren't "leaning." It was prettty cool walking up the leaning tower. The one really neat thing was how worn the stairs were from so many people walking up them. We basically just ate lunch after and then went home after that. (Later I'll rant about Italian street signs..) We both got calzones for lunch and they were very good. Oh, one thing we did see in Pisa was a very impressive man dressed as a statue. First, he looked pretty realistic. He was one of the ones painted gold, so he looked like he was metal. And he was half sitting/standing, like a wall-sit almost but at an angle that looked more tiring. Anyway, I was impressed so I gave him some change and he pretended to kiss my hand. I also found a shop in Pisa where I bought a very coral colored skirt :)

The next morning we enjoyed our breakfast and then headed out to catch a train to Florence.