Day 5: Relaxing in Pisa

I think some people just pass through Pisa, hastily snap a few photos of the leaning tower, and go on to Florence or another city. They don't know what they're missing.

Yesterday, I described the other great things there are to see, including: the Duomo, Baptistery, museums, and town itself. Today, I got to experience something even better - the people.

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints there is always one thing I can count on - a congregation of friendly, like-minded people anywhere I am in the world (just about). So it is in Pisa, Italy. I enjoyed the early morning walk from my hotel near the River Arno to the chapel, arriving early enough to chat in my broken Italian with a few members.

I was able to understand about 80-90% of what was being said in the various meetings, and I even contributed a little bit in Sunday School when I got my courage up. In Sacrament Meeting, I was asked to help administer the Sacrament which took me by surprise but also was an answer to a silent prayer that I be able to do God's will, do some good, today.

I knew that Pisa was close to a U.S. military base and expected to meet some U.S. personnel stationed there at church. True enough, there were a few families, and it was interesting to see the young American and Italian families side by side in unity.

After the meetings, a brother named Mike Trexler chatted with me and invited me to have dinner and spend the afternoon with him; his wife, Maria; and his daughter, Pamela. He informed me that they lived about 25 minutes away from the city and that he wouldn't be offended if I turned down the invitation. Turn down the invitation? to go spend a beautiful day in Tuscany outside the city? and eat real home-cooked Italian food? I would have to be pazzo.

Once we arrived at their house in the hills of Monte Serra, I was invited to sit out on the porch and wait for dinner. Pamela soon joined me, and we spoke about traveling - which she has done a lot of - and missions - her brother is currently serving in the Salt Lake City Mission. It was pleasantly warm and a cool breeze made everything perfect. (At this point, you should be rolling your eyes. Seriously, I did nothing to deserve such beautiful weather.)

Dinner was spectacular. I cannot compliment it enough. Fresh basilico from their herb garden definitely was a great touch. Even the conversation was excellent. We talked about Italy, languages, travel, family, etc. etc. I simply can't say enough to describe how fun it was.

Grazie, famiglia Trexler. Era un piacere conocer tutti loro. Spero poter andare a visita loro di nuovo alcun giorno.

Thanking Mike and his family for their hospitality, Pamela drove me back to my hotel in Pisa. I'm going to call that a great day.

This experience today highlights some thoughts I've been having lately.

Ruins and art are great, fascinating. Travel is enriching and liberating. Relationships, people, buona volontá, these are things that are without price and truly beautiful. To those (mostly my family and friends) that are reading, I simply want to say that if you never travel, if you never do anything extravagant in your life, if you never can one-up someone at the dinner table telling stories ("I went to the moon", start from 3:05 or 5:15), just know that the most important, most rewarding, most valuable things are the people around us. They are infinitely more complex than the Sistine Chapel and more valuable than the gold of so many altar pieces, even if they appear to be more obtuse than the leaning Tower of Pisa (pun definitely intended).