April 2

I woke up thinking about Mom and Grandma this morning. I had visions of them getting lost on the way to the train station, or getting distracted by the goodies at San Lorenzo Market and missing their bus to Siena, or their bus reservation being misplaced. Well, I shouldn't have worried because they got off without a hitch. They did the same bus tour of Tuscany that I did in January: Siena, San Gimignano, and Pisa, with a stop at an organic winery for lunch. I had my first day back in classes. Cue "wahh wahh" music. I got two of my midterms back, and my inner nerd was very pleased with my grades. Only nerds get wound up with grades while studying abroad. I had a catch-up day in Florence: emails, assignments, and errands. I met back up with them to pack for our trip to Pompei tomorrow and grab a quick pizza. I loved hearing about their adventures in Siena, Grandma's first Italian hot chocolate (think Hershey's syrup), drinking wine atop San Gimignano, and posing with (what they thought was a disappointing) Leaning Tower. Grandma was visibly exhausted by the end of the day: she battled it out with a mosquito in the hotel room until she smashed him to smitherines at 4:30am the night before. It is another early morning tomorrow. No rest for the weary.