Day 2 and 3

Day 2 was uneventful, mostly time spent at the conference.

Day 3 on the other hand, was very lively. The first half was once again spent at the conference, but I decided to forgo the site tour of Virgo and go to Pisa instead in the afternoon. So Sanjit, a postdoc at Nice France decided to come along with me and we both walked down to the Cascina Railway station, which is about 2 kms from the hotel. It was a little hot today and so the walk wasn't as pleasant as it was on Day 1. When we got to the railway station, the ticket machine did not accept notes higher than 5 Euros and since we both had only 20 Euro notes, we had to walk around for almost 20 minutes before we could get change from a coffee shop.

The train ride wasnt too bad and then we walked around in Pisa till we got to the leaning tower and the other monuments. We sat there for about an hour and saw the people walking by. A lot of them were English speaking and there were a disproportionately large number of Indians in the crowds. I even caught a couple of words of Gujarati and Hindi now and then. After a brief look at the tourist shops in the area, we walked down to the river and I was bowled over. The sights were stunning and the city was very quaint and nice. The colors that Italians use to paint their homes is just plain excellent. The sunlight was interfering with my pictures and so I didn't take too many snaps. Sanjit then left to catch his train at 6 pm.

I decided to take a walk in another part of town and I ran into this Gelato shop near Garibaldi Piazza (Plaza). The ice cream was divine, and there were atleast 50 different flavors out there. I had 2 of them by the end of the day I hope to have a lot more by the end of this trip. Then I had a vegetarian pizza at a small place near Garibaldi square. The most interesting part of the whole day was talking in Italian with different people and at one point, I was in a supermarket asking a girl which shampoo was for dry hair. The look she gave me was very funny and we both burst out laughing. I needed shampoo because I had forgotten to bring some from the US and the shampoo in the hotel wasn't too good. Another funny incident was when I was asking for directions to the train station. I asked in perfectly decent Italian Dove' il Tren Stazione (Where is the Train Station) and the reply I get is "huh???" , So I repeat the question and at this point start flipping through my Italian book again and see if I made a mistake somewhere; then she looks at me and the book and looks at her husband as says, damn these tourists here, even they don't know English. So I smile and just walk on by, not bothering to correct her romantic notions about Indians knowing Italian and not English.

The ride back was uneventful and I now have a big day ahead tommorow. Arrivederci (goodbye) for now. Ciao.