Lucignano:)

First weekend trip, lol. Alright so it started Friday around noon. We opened our building door... to pouring rain. Of course, the first rain we experience in Florence is the day we are walking with backpacks and cameras all the way to the train station. Luckily I remembered my rain jacket as did my roomies. So it was all good. Then we finally make it to the train station. We buy our tickets for Arezzo at 1:09... which left us like 12 minutes to validate our tickets and figure out everything. The train situation was quite confusing. The ticket doesn't say what platform to go to, and the signs at each platform are not super helpful either. UGHH. We were just standing there looking back and forth trying to figure out where to go. So we went up to a train assistant at the train we thought was correct and held it up and said "Uhhh, correcto?" Our Italian is incredible... Anyways... he essentially said, "No, your train is that one. And it's leaving in 2 minutes so run." So we ran. We were those Americans, it was fabulous. We got on the train and it was packed. I had to sit with random people and my roomies kept on walking. Then no joke, an announcement comes on in Italian. Ummm. I didn't understand a word. People listen attentively then begin to moan and groan and pack up. WHAT THE WHAT. What was happening? I look at the man next to me and said "What? Cosa?" He holds up three fingers to me and just says tre. Ummmm. So I pack up, begin walking off. My roommate Anna called me (thank goodness we have those Italian phones to use while here when we don't have wifi). Apparently our train wasn't working, someone who spoke Italian and English explained to Anna, and so our whole train was moving from platform 16 to 3. Lovely:) We make it there and luckily this time we are all in the same car. Once on the train, all went smoothly. So, we were going to a TINY medieval town called Lucignano. One of my roomies Felicity has a good family friend there who owns a bed and breakfast with his wife and 3 year old daughter. Paulo picked us up from the train station (in Arezzo) and drove us 20 minutes to his home. It was a beautiful little bed and breakfast, and Paulo and his wife Beatrice were so incredibly hospitable. They housed us, fed us, and showed us around all for free! We ate, we walked around (you can literally walk around the town in 10 minutes), laid out, played with their precious daughter, and got gelato. We stayed Friday afternoon to Saturday afternoon. So tonight we headed back.. and of course.. had more train struggles. We bought the right ticket, got on the wrong train. UGHHHH. I mean, it was going to the same final station: Firenze SMN, but the train we got on took an hour and 40 minutes because it was regional and made a bunch of stops. Whereas, the train we bought a ticket for took only 40 minutes. The train assistant who was checking our tickets was the one who let us know and I was so tired and for some reason thought it was hilareous. I lost it, I was laughing so hard. He got really tickled at how stupid I felt and how funny I thought it was so then he started laughing really hard. I think we made his day:) He asked where we were from and just LOLed when we said United States. Whoops, fillin stereotypes right and left. But I say their train system is stupid, not us. Geeeeeeez. Welp, we made it back tonight safely:) Overall success.

Albergo Osteria da Toto! The bed and breakfast we stayed at. 

The eating area. Beatrice fixed us AMAZING meals. Her father was a chef and taught her everything he knows.

View from our room

Anna and I on our adventure around the town. Such a beautiful background since Lucignano is on a hill. 

Apparently these style trees are in one of Michaelangelo's paintings...