Europe Trip: Day 21, June 10th

In the morning we got ready and all three of us, Anna, Gabriele, and I, drove to Arezzo. We had a typical Italian breakfast, which is a pastry or bread and a coffee -- usually cappachino or espresso. Then they dropped me off at the train station in Arezzo and told me how to get around from there.

I explored the old part of the city, saw the old Roman wall, walked the streets, found a coffee shop that had wireless internet, saw the ruins of the Roman ampitheater, went inside a couple churches and shops.

When I got hungry I stopped at a restaurant and had a pizza, watching the people walk by. At 5:30pm I stopped by at Anna's work, which is a place that sells wine, and said good-bye to her. Then I caught the 6pm train back to Castiglion Fiorentino, where Gabriele picked me up along with his friend Francesco. We ate a snack and he dropped me off at his place, while he went to visit his parents for a couple hours.

Then at 9pm or so he returned and said that a couple of his friends were going to go into Arezzo to see a movie and wanted to know if I was interested. He told me that the movie was Angels and Demons, the only downside was that it would be dubbed in Italian. After talking a bit we decided to just go around Arezzo a bit at night, grab something to eat, and then say hi to Anna and a couple more of his friends.

When we were driving over, Gabriele's friends -- a guy named Fabio, who Gabriele has known since he was little, and his wife -- decided that they would just come with us. So we walked around, and since Gabriele didn't know where a good place to eat was, we went and asked Anna. The place she ended up showing us was the same place that I had ate pizza at earlier in the day! I asked Gabriele, Fabio, and Fabio's wife what would be good, and they said that the duck sauce pasta was a typical plate to get in Tuscany. It turned out to be a great choice and tasted very good.

While I was eating (the other three had already ate) a friend of Gabriele's, who was an American girl named Natalie, came over and talked with us for a while. As usual everyone else spoke a different language for a majority of the time, which could get a little awkward, but it wasn't too bad. Then I finished it off with a glass of wine at Anna's place -- which I didn't even have to pay for =)

All in all a good day where I got to meet quite a few Italians from a small town. Dare I say, "real" Italy? :P