Amelia's Outrageous Adventures: Pisa!

Today had an inauspicious start but a great finale! I woke up in Florence feeling vaguely pessimistic. I had to check out of my Florence hostel at 10, and I couldn't check into my Pisa hostel til 3, and the train from Florence to Pisa is only an hour. So I had time to kill, but I was in a bad mood. I woke up feeling nauseous, and the sun and the secondhand smoke just made it worse. I took some pictures of Santa Maria Novella church, but did nothing else I hadn't already done yesterday. I did go back to the Duomo one last time. I think that is my favorite part of Florence. As I was leaving the hostel, two girls in line behind me to check out were talking about going to Pisa. I heard the hostel's travel agent/guide tell them "Pisa is f***ing boring." Not a good sign, since he is basically paid to make Italy sound like fun.
The train was barely airconditioned, and I sweated the whole hour and a half to Pisa, since I accidentally got on one of the slow trains. By the time I reached my hostel I was exhausted. I took a three hour nap and woke up to find the two girls from the Florence hostel. Somehow, they ended up not just in the same hostel, but in the same room as me. What are the odds?
The evening got better as I found freshly baked bread at the nearby grocery store. After a wonderful (though not particularly nutritious) dinner of babybel cheese, baguette, and chocolate gelato, I had the first stroke of luck I'd had all day. I walked into the kitchen to find girls discussing tonight's festival. Ever the loud one, I issued a general invitation to the room to whoever would like to go to the festival with me so I wouldn't be alone. By ten o'clock, I was in the midst of about twelve girls, and headed to the festival!
It was pretty awesome! Every year on the feast day of St. Ranieri, Pisa's patron saint, the Pisans put lights in the windows of all the houses along the river and then they shoot off fireworks. The crowds were horrible, but it was worth it! Fireworks are awesome everywhere, but seeing them from the banks of a river in ITALY, after having just eaten gelato, was absolutely amazing! It really felt like an Italian celebration, too. There were foreigners there, but not many. It was barely advertised. I'd planned on attending, but most of the girls I was with had found out about the festival only a day or two before. I really felt part of Pisan culture, and it was so much fun!
Enjoy the photos, but keep in mind that it's very hard to photograph fireworks.