We have arrived!

Well GSE team 9700 have finally arrived in Italy and it has been a whirlwind for the last 2 days since our arrival. We had good flights, very long trip, but well worth the wait.
We arrived in Pisa around 1pm italian time and were whisked off to our host families and then met up with everyone at what they call Carnivale. Which is like a very big festival they have in Viareggio with massive floats. The building we went to is purpose built so that people can make these floats which have a theme, similar to Mardi Gras in Australia, a lot of them have a political themes. They are very colourful and big, up to 20m high!!! And they are all made from paper mache, they can take up to 5 months to construct and costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars!

We went to the club meeting on our first evening which was great, it was held at a fairly new hotel in town. We did a group presentation which went down quite well, they loved the pictures of Bec & Adrians children, very cute. Their guest speaker was an Italian surgeon who is at the cutting edge of using stem cells for regenerative surgery, so this was very interesting. A lot of the members of the club are doctors, so they found this very interesting.

After we finallay had some sleep after the meeting, today we headed to look at the marble which comes from the moutains surrounding the town we are staying in. First to a marble factory which is owned by one of the rotary members, we watched them cutting and shaping the marble. It is amazing, nearly every house in this area has marble somewhere, or everywhere, it is so easy to get. Then we travelled up the mountains, a very long way to the quarry where they mine the marble. It was absolutely spectacular! So high up, and the marble is amazing!

We had lunch a a great little restaurant about half way down the mountain, so much food! They really love to eat, and it is all so good.

We then headed into town at the foot of the mountains where there are a lot of marble sculptures in the streets. So much history and they are amazing.

We have some great pictures which will be up very soon, better head off now though as dinner is soon so need to get ready. So keep posted for some pics which will give you a better idea of how amazing this part of the world really is!