Rhea's Italian Adventure

Hi friends!

We arrived in Italy last week. We stayed in a villa, which we call ‘the palace.’ We stayed in a town called Lucca that is near the sea for our first week so we could adjust to Italy. While we were there, we swam in the Mediterranean Sea. I got stung by two jellyfish. The beaches are funny here because they have chairs and tents everywhere. We had a tent that belonged to the villa. While we were at the beach we went out on a pier and Eliza and I saw 65 Jelly Fish, including a humongous one.

We also went to the leaning tower of Pisa. Pisa was only 15 minutes from my house and very beautiful. My dad and I climbed up to the top of the leaning tower. A long time ago Pisa and Lucca had a fight. Pisa and Lucca protected themselves with big walls. In Lucca there is a bike trail around the top of the wall which we biked around. While we were staying at the Villa we met two girls named Imogen and Elenor. They were from England. We saw them everywhere. I enjoyed playing with them. I hope they come and visit me in California.

One day while we were in Lucca we went to the Pinocchio theme park. It was not the Disney story. There where these metal statues everywhere with characters from the story. The best one was the big whale because you could go inside its teeth and every minute the whale would spout and you could get soaked. Near the park there was an old garden. There were fountains with fish in it. We feed the fish cornflakes. One of the fish would put its mouth up out of the water and let us drop cornflakes into his mouth. Eliza and I named him Mr. Big Mouth.

Now we’re in Florence in our new apartment. It’s smack in the middle of Florence. When we walk out our door we can see the Duomo a block away. The Duomo has a big dome on it. It is a church that stood a hundred years without a roof because they did not know how to build a dome that big. Eliza and I are sharing a room and there is a loft for visitors that has a little desk.

We were eaten by mosquitoes our first 2 nights here, because it is so hot and the windows have no screens. Last night Lizy got 17 mosquito bites; so we today taped up some screens and hope that we’ll be ok tonight.

Ciao