Rain, Strikes, and Spinach

So, yesterday, Friday, we were supposed to go on our first day trip to the nearby town of Lucca. Unfortunately for everyone in Florence, the machinists for the trains went on strike from 9-5. We were unable to catch our train or even an earlier train to Lucca. So, instead of touring a beautiful walled city, we walked around Florence again. Bob took a few of us, after we separated at the train station, around to a few more out-of-the-way places in Florence before buying the five of us hot chocolate. It was really, really good hot chocolate. Thick and creamy with really good heavy, whipped cream on top. Ohh, soooo good.

Anyway. Bob also showed us where there are English books. The bookstore had a very good selection of English titles. I'll have to return there when I'm done with the books I brought with me. We separated with Bob at the bookstore and continued walking along the #7 bus route. We decided that we wanted to walk a little bit more instead of just hopping on the bus back to Fiesole. We stopped in a few stores, picked up a few small items, and continue on our way. We hopped onto the bus at its 3rd or so stop and came back to Fiesole. Even though we had separated from Bob quite a while back, he was on the same bus as we were. Not really surprising considering that there is only 2 maybe 3 #7 buses.

After returning to Villa Bonelli, I decided to take a nap. I basically lounged all day until dinner. Dinner was an interesting affair at La Reggia. For our first course consisted of spaghetti and pesto; second course was omelets and cooked spinach; for dessert we had panna cotta. The spaghetti was very good. The omelets were okay, I'm not a very big fan of breakfast foods for any other meal. I also don't enjoy cooked spinach, but I did try some of it. To me, it tasted a little off. The panna cotta also tasted very different from the one I had at Etrusca. It also looked as if it was taken out of a can and put on our plates. So dinner last night was not the greatest.

To top it all off, when we walked to dinner it was pouring rain out. I had my umbrella but my pants and jacket still got drenched. On the way back it was slippery walking down the very large hill. And then when we got back to Villa Bonelli, Betsy was sick from dinner. So, hopefully, we never have the particular combination again as it didn't sit well with a lot of us.

After dinner, Allyson put in the movie "P.S. I Love You." I watched the movie as I played two games of chess with Eldon. I beat him in both games. I think it was probably due to the fact that I have no real strategy when I play and he does so my lack of strategy confused him. Anyway, it doesn't really matter as we were playing for fun. Afterwards, both Eldon and I joined in on the card game going on. The game was Presidents and Assholes. I couldn't even begin to describe the rules as I'm still learning the game, but I had fun playing. We played until 10:30 when the guys decided to go out to the bar. I retired back to my room, showered, and went to bed.

Bob told us that if the weather was nicer on Saturday we'll go to Lucca. He said he'd knock on our doors at 7 if we were to go but this morning we got no knock. When I woke up the weather was just as bad as last night. Heavy fog and rain. So, Bob said we would head to Lucca some other Saturday since we would all be miserable if we went today.