Today is our last day in Italy. We may be trying to cram too many things into the day...but hey, when it's a once in a lifetime thing...You want to get as many things done as possible right? So, that being said...we woke up, got ready, and went up to breakfast. We asked the lady of the house to call and book horseback riding for us. The ride on the beach, is only a Saturday/Sunday thing, so that sucked a little bit, but instead, she's booked us a ride through the park. That will be nice, I'm excited.
We went downstairs, packed our things up, cleared out the room, and dropped our bags off in the house. The owners of the house said they'd watch them for us until after we went riding. We walked down the hill and to the bus stop. There was one that would come 15 minutes from that time, but with nothing to do until 3:30 anyway, we decided we didn't need to hurry, and we'd sit in the cafe and have a gelato. We bought our tickets, then did that, and my Mom had a cappuccino. When we came out, we decided to check times for when we had to return to get our bags. There weren't any that would have us to Calci and back after horseback riding, in time for the bus we needed to get to the train and airport on time. We decided to drag ourselves back up the hill...miss that bus, and pick up our bags.
Backs breaking from such heavy bags, we were headed out the gates when the owners of the Bed and Breakfast stopped us. "Senora Preddy" they said. We carefully turned around, and they told us where we could find a bus stop CLOSER to the B and B!!! We couldn't believe it. It was a hundred metre walk to the stop! When we arrived, we couldn't believe how close it really was. We sat on a bench, and I wrote some of this blog while we waited for the bus to arrive. When it did, we jumped on, and rode into Pisa. When we arrived, we were very disappointed to find out we couldn't go horseback riding. We had it booked and everything, but it turned out the park wasn't within walking distance, and no trains or buses went there. I was not a happy camper. We got on a train, and headed to Lucca. I was in a mood.
As we pulled up to the Lucca station, our very heavy bags still on our backs, and me with a foul look on my face...we walked to the washrooms. This didn't help my mood at all. We opened the door of the stall, to see what can only be explained as a hole in the ground, with a place to rest each foot on the side. No way was I going in there. We headed out of the station, and my first impression of Lucca was not great. I hadn't thought about the fact that no train station is really nice...so I let it put a damper on things. We walked towards the information booth, and it was closed. I was sure this day was going to be a disaster. We walked across the street, and things started looking much prettier. We walked past a very small ravine, and into a cave. This is where my mood completely changed. Soon enough we were walking through these tunnel like caves and into dungeons etc looking at comics on the walls. At the end, you took a marker and wrote what you wanted into the comic strip. It was pretty awesome. We climbed the stairs out of that tunnel, and at the top, were taken back by the amazing view of this little place called Lucca. I can definitely say the first impression was wrong, and I would love to go back and stay there next time I travel to Italy. Everything was so beautiful! We stopped for lunch at a little pizzeria type place, and got a real gelato as we walked back from checking out the event happening down the street. They had a huge stage set up, and it was Summerfest. Upset that we didn't have more time to explore, we hurried back to the train station, and took it to the airport.
It turned out the airport was only about 3 stops, so we got there crazy early, and weren't' allowed to go through security yet. We sat down and had a couple of drinks (cappuccinos and such), and then we went on our way. We headed back to the line up, and got stuck behind 2 of the most annoying Americans I've ever come across. It was like I was in an episode of Amazing Race. The boyfriend kept speaking so loud so that everyone could hear him, and the girlfriend was going on and on about how she hoped her luggage didn't weigh too much. Well all she had was a backpack, and it was much MUCH smaller than my Mom's and mine. She walked up to the counter and willingly put it on a scale. When it was .2 over, she made a face, took it off, did something with some shoes and weighed it again. When it was under, she turned around and gave my Mom thumbs up...as if she cared. They drove us nuts!!!
When our gate was finally up on the board, we walked to it...but guess who got there first. That's right, the annoying Americans. THEN...we're sitting there, and the 5 girls who delayed our flight out showed up. (One of their friends wasn't on the plane yet, and they were freaking out and asking everyone to cause a scene and get off so she'd have enough time to come on board. It was all ridiculous). Anyway, they show up and stand right in front of the counter, so of course, who gets on first? Ugh. So my Mom and I finally get on the plane that showed up late, and who do we end up sitting behind? The annoying Americans of course! Well...the next few hours of my life were terrible! It was one of the worst flights ever!
I had these two Americans in front of me, making me want to vomit as one bit a chip, and had the other take the other half from their mouth, and then...this man gets on the plane, and asks if he can sit beside my Mom. She says ok, and he sits down. The airline steward has just explained all the safety precautions to us as we're sitting in the Emergency Exit row, so she turns to him to explain, and he doesn't answer. In fact, he's looking at the floor, and not listening to a word she says. She had to bend over, look him in the eye, and ask if he understood before he'd answer. Ridiculous! As if that's not bad enough, he takes his shoes off, puts his feet up on the arm rests of the person in front of him, and has half of his body in my Mom's chair. THEN...he's on his phone sending text messages, and won't stop stamping his feet. I'm not going to lie to you, I was absolutely terrified. I was POSITIVE I was about to blow up. Every now and then, he'd take his foot off the chair in front, and stamp it on the ground. The crew asked him 3 times to turn off his cell phone, and it wasn't until we had actually lifted off the ground that he did it. I was sure he was sending someone a message to detonate the bomb. Then, we're in the air and he's constantly asking how much longer the flight is. Now...as if all this isn't bad enough...Are you ready to be disgusted? This guy, reaches in his mouth...takes his gum between his two fingers, and sticks it on the side of the seat! WHO DOES THAT???? I was soooo disgusted and had to tell my Mom what I had just seen. She couldn't believe it, and when he got up to the washroom, she asked one of the stewardesses if she could just keep an eye out, and if she saw him in my Mom's chair, although it looked like he was with us, he wasn't - so could she ask him to move. She told my Mom to give him a really hard elbow. We laughed, and for the rest of the flight, every time the stewardess' looked at him, she couldn't stop laughing. The 3 of us broke out into laughter. People must have thought we were insane. By the end of the flight, she must have told her co-workers cuz they'd walk by, wink at us and start laughing at him. Luckily we ended up getting back to England without blowing up, and came to the conclusion that perhaps this guy was just a very nervous flyer, and therefore had to make EVERYONE around him uncomfortable.
I breezed through customs as I'm a British Citizen, but it took my Mom a good hour to get through. Crazy! I sat on a bench waiting for her, and once she was through, we met up with my Uncle and he drove us back to Heloise's. By this time, it was 1:30, so we went to sleep almost instantly. xx
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