Let me say first off that I was not involved in too much planning for this trip. So on the day we were supposed to leave I got on the 1:10 shuttle to the train station. My cohorts Jane and Emily were supposed to come on the 2:10 shuttle and our train was supposed to leave at 2:45. Jane had bought all our train tickets so I couldn't pic mine up but I soon discovered that I had forgotten my rail card which would in effect keep me from getting on the train. I panicked for a minute and then just decided to ask the clerk at the ticket office what to do once Jane picked up our tickets. Well Emily arrived shortly after 2pm without Jane. Emily had freaked out that she wasn't going to make it and had called a cab to take her. Silly. Cabs are expensive when you are traveling solo. Jane arrived a little while later and got our tickets and I took mine to the clerk and explained to her that I had foolishly left my rail card at school. She said it was fine and that I would just have to pay a little more to make my ticket a standard ticket. So I changed it and dragged Emily and Jane away from the woman they were talking to so we could get to our platform. We got on our train and all seemed to be going right. We arrived at the East Midlands Parkway where we would get on a shuttle to the airport; but when Emily pushed the button to open the door to get off the train it opened half way and then slid shut. She pushed it again but still nothing. The train started moving and Emily, Jane and the two other girls going to the airport with us began to freak out. The train pulled out of the station and we were still on it. Two of the girls went off to find the conductor and another girl and I tried to remember what stop was next. By this point we were less than an hour and a half from our takeoff and we weren't headed to the airport. They finally found a conductor and told him what happened. He said at the next stop we could get on a shuttle or get a taxi to the airport. We waited impatiently and when the train stopped in Loughborough we flew off the train and towards the exit. We asked the guard if there was a shuttle to the airport. He said yes, but it wouldn't be leaving till half past, putting us at the airport after our check-in time had closed. We said "no thanks" and ran out of the station and piled into the first taxi we saw. The next twenty minutes were the longest of m life. I thought we would never get there. The taxi driver made awkward conversation and I seemed to be the only one who could understand him. Also, apparently the speed limit there is something like 10 miles an hour because he was crawling along at snails pace.
Finally we got to the airport and Emily and I hastily paid him and took off for the departure area, leaving Jane in the car. We assumed she was right behind us so we went in and looked for our check-in desk. There was no-one there so we were able to get through in a flash. I headed for the departure tv area to find out what gate we were at and I ran into Jane. She was furious we had left her and I just said, "Hey, we gotta go.We are in a hurry". She went off to check-in and I waited there for her and Emily to join me. Once they finished we all went through security and I , lucky I, got searched. It was hardly an inconvenience, but I'm just tired of getting searched. By this time it was 30 minutes to departure and so we sat down for a few moments before going to our gate. Everything ran smoothly until we got the Pisa airport. When we were booking this trip Emily said she didn't want to pay for two nights in a hostel and that we should sleep in the Pisa airport when we arrived at 8:30 pm on Thursday. I was fine with that because I've slept in almost every airport I've been to over here. We were going to sleep there and take an early coach into Florence the next morning. That was all well and good until we found out that the airport closed at 1:30am and then they would kick us out. What kind of international airport closes at 1:30am? My heart stopped and my head started racing, trying to find options of what we could do.
We found out that there were only two hostels in Pisa. No good. I suggested we just take the last coach to Florence that night at 11:30 and hope for the best. We had no idea where we would go or what we would do. It was 9:30 now so we had roughly two hours until the coach left. We were going to try and get some sleep on the off chance that we might have to be up all night walking around Florence. Jane and I were going to find the bathroom when we happened upon a computer station with internet access. We pulled out some Euros and went straight to Hostelworld.com. We looked for the cheapest place that would have 24 hour reception. We found a place and even thought it had a 76% rating we jotted down its name and address. I also frantically checked facebook to see if Julie Ann or Jaleesa (my two friends studying there) was online. They weren't so our only hope was this hostel. The lady at the coach counter said there were some pubs that stayed open until dawn and that we should be able to go there. Awesome! Not. We tried to get an hour or so of sleep, but it didn't work because we were in very uncomfortable chairs. I never want to sleep in an airport again! Eventually it was time and we got on our coach. The lights were turned off and I tried to sleep but I couldn't. The Italians were being so loud and two girls in particular were being incredibly obnoxious. I turned my iPod up so high it was hurting my ears and I could still hear them.
The coach arrived and we staggered out and set off looking for the hostel. First we had to head towards the Duomo and from there we might find our way. The streets were pretty well lit but pretty empty. We ran into small groups of people or couples. It was not after 1am. We found the Duomo, which was stunning even at night and turned south. Than God, he have me a great sense of direction or we would have been totally hopeless. We walked down vacant streets and closed restaurants. I asked Jane for the name and address and she produced it after going through her entire bag of luggage. She got it and we found the road the hostel was supposed to be on. At the corner there was a Piazza where a bunch of young people were hanging out getting drunk. We walked to to the right and started looking for address numbers. But there was a problem. There was more than one address number on each building. There would be a number 16 than the numbers 151, 152, and 153 at different points on the bilding. We were looking for number 6 so it should have been near the beginning of the street, but we couldn't find it. the numbers kept getting high so we walked the other way until we found ourselves in another piazza. We headed for an Irish pub that still looked opn and Jane asked where the hostel was. Fortunately they spoke English, but they didn't know the hostel only the street. We walked back towards the Piazza with lots of people and aksed in another pub. They also didn't know the hostel. We were beginning to wonder what we would do because all the pubs were closing at 2am. We wandered and wandered and wandered until we thought there was no hope in finding a place to sleep. Then God showed us mercy and suddenly we found ourselves in front of number 6 Via Porta Rossa. There were a whole bunch of apartments to call and we searched in vain for the only that said Hotel Veronique. Emily spotted one that had Veronique in the title so we pushed the button to ring the "apartment". We waited and Jane and I tried to figure out how to ask for a room in Italian. Suddenly a voice came from the speaker and Emily smacked us instead of replying to them herself. Jane ran to the speaker and said "hello?" frantically. He rsponded and she told him there were three travelers looking for a place to stay and asked if he had any rooms He said "yes" and buzzed us up to the second floor.
Long story short we got a bed to sleep in that night. It was a seedy joint, but atleast we were not out on the street. We could hear the drunk people outside for along time, but eventually we all feel asleep. The next morning we woke up and got out of there to see what we had really come to see: Florence.
I hope I never had to go through something like that again, but now I know what people are talking about when they say that people get transformed while they are abroad. They really get to see how people work under stress and in unfamiliar territory. I'm not sure what I would have done had I been alone, but there's always the possibility of finding out on my later adventures...
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