Day 28- Pisa & Erykah Badu

Finally, we make it to Pisa. Yesterday, about five of us tried to take the bus to Pisa, but this time the train strike also affected the buses. We had to go look at the pulpit at the Duomo of Pisa for our paper that’s due tomorrow. I really didn’t want to wait to the day before because now we have to rush back for class in the afternoon. I remember passing it when I took the bus from the airport to Lucca.

So as soon as you walk pass the gates right away you see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I thought it would be this huge tower, but it’s actually kind of small. Also the church isn’t that tall compared to all the churches we have been seeing. I was so mad that I left my camera, now I have to come back. In addition, the people that I was with didn’t want to pay the €15 to go inside the tower.

So we go through the baptistery and then the church into the to look at the two pulpits, the first was created by a guy named Nicola Pisano, which started a revolutionary change to design. The other one was created by Giovanni, his son several years later. So outside you see all these people with their arms in the air and taking pictures, as if they are holding the tower up themselves. It is hilarious to watch these people. We grab some lunch and head back out for class.

So I get to my video class, my professor is like oh we need to shot some more for the class video. A couple scenes just didn’t come out right, then we also need to do sound. All this man cares about is this stupid class video! We barely have anytime to do our own work or does he even care…NO! I had finished my tower piece and asked if he wanted to look at it for critic and he was like sure, but we never got to it. So we have less than two weeks to do our two individual projects for the class. I’m having trouble with concepts and ideas, never did videos before and not getting much help.

I will worry about that tomorrow, I finally go home and get dressed for the Erykah Badu concert. What’s really cool is the piazza where the concert is one block down from me. Don’t have to worry about any transportation, paying for parking, leaving early, traffic, just walk out the door and go. Some guy opened up the concert, I have no idea who he was, but he did pretty good. He was singing in Italian, it had a country/slow jams feel.

I was kind of bummed about going by myself, but vino and had a great time. My seat was pretty good, I could see people’s faces. Erykah came out, everybody started screaming, they have a lot of love for her. She had this red wrap on, then she took it off and had on a sliver tube top, one-piece pants suit. It was actually pretty fly! So there was this aisle down middle and people started seating there. So I moved up from row 11 to row 2 and sat on ground. The next thing I know four girls in front of me stood up and everybody else stood up. I went from row 2 to row 7. I wanted to seat down and enjoy the music, which now was impossible because even the people in the seats where standing up and on their chairs.

The security tried to control the crowd, but at this point it the fans had taken over. I was surprised to see a lot of men in the audience. They were cheering, yelling and screaming. I felt like I was the only black person in the audience and singing the songs. She sung all of her songs in English and spoke only two words in Italian, which was Lucca and grazie (thank you). She really put on a great performance. She sang, talked about her album and played the keyboard. It was a great night, until I had to go home and write my paper for class tomorrow.