Florence Day 2

After spending the night in that horrible hostel we got up the next morning and went in search of our actual hostels. We had all forgotten the time change and so we thought it was 9am when it was really 10am. First we stopped at the hostel where Mary Katherine and Tina were staying. We had booked at different times and the hostel I was staying it filled up so they had to find a different hostel. While they checked in I waited in the stairwell and looked out over the street below. Shortly thereafter they joined me and we traipsed off to find my hostel. The whole multiple numbers on one building thing was tripping us out, but fortunately we did find my hostel.

I went up and checked in while they went across the street to get some money. My hostel was really cute and quaint and the woman running it was really sweet. The view from the balcony of my hostel looked out towards the Duomo, which was stunning. After checking-in, etc, I joined them on the street below and we crossed a bought some groceries for the next day. Some things never change and I am still ever the frugal traveler. After buying our sustenance for the remainder of our trip, we walked through the San Lorenzo market to get to the Duomo. The market was amazing! It reminded me of the Portobello market except better. There were leather bags and notebooks everywhere. There was class from Venice and scarves from the south part of Italy. There was touristy stuff and beautiful carpets. There was very little "junk" which sort of contrasted it with the Portobello market. It was a very class street market. The venders tried to persuade us to look at their wares, but we replied with a genteel, but firm "no, gratzie". They were kind enough to not persist further. After making it through the market we walked the short rest of the way to the Duomo.

The Duomo we had seen the night before was deserted and loomed above us like the imposing authoritative figure it was constructed to be. Now, by daylight, the Duomo had transformed into a holy place of reflection, instead of one of divine justice. The exterior of the Duomo is one of the most beautiful and remarkable feats of architectural artistry I have seen to date. Even in the overcast light the green and pink marble shone beautifully. It was a towering edifice with gothic and moorish influence. The inside of the Duomo, however is rather a disappointment after you've seen the outside. It's beautiful and lofty and the frescos on the dome are stunning, but otherwise the walls are a bland earth tone and other than the spectacular floor inlay the interior leaves something to be desired for the supposed awe-inspiring-ness. We walked around in it for a little bit and then decided to move on.

After the Duomo we wandered down towards another one of the Piazza's near the Ufizzi galleries and the galleria academia. We saw a whole bunch of statues... go figure... and then we headed off towards the Ponte Veccio. The Ponte Veccio is the bridge over the main canal in Florence and on the actual bridge there are dozens of tiny little jewelry shops... don't ask me why. However the very center of the bridge is open and you can look out on either side towards the canal. It was still overcast, but the view was pretty nice.

Leaving the Ponte Veccio we wandered around the other bank for a while just seeing the local culture and eventually we wandered all the way up to the top of a hill overlooking Florence. Great things befall you when you least expect it. The sky was clearing now and we could see all of Florence beneath us. It was pretty spectacular. The Ponte Veccio looked very small off in the distance and the powerful dome of the Duomo stood out above all other buildings in the city. We sat up at the top of this hill for awhile just breathing, drinking and eating chocolate. It was lovely. Eventually we figured we better go back down and do something with the rest of our day. So we wandered down and towards the Ufizzi galleries. We were planning on going in, but we took one look at the line and changed out minds. Mary Katherine said she would come back early the next morning because she really wanted to see the galleries. Tina and I just opted out. I will definitely go when I go back to Florence in May. 

Instead we walked around some more and went in search of a gelateria that a friend had recommended to me. Let me say here that I would have absolutely no qualms with quitting college right now, finding a flat in Florence or somewhere else in Italy, devoting some time to learning the language and then spending the rest of my life eating gelato on the banks of a canal and writing short stories long into the night. After getting our gelato we wandered back to towards the Duomo and sat on a bench contemplating what to do with our evening. We eventually decided to head back to the Ponte Veccio and watch the sunset. It was probably the most beautiful smoldering sky I have seen in my entire life. The colors were unbelievable and even though it only lasted for a few short minutes I will undoubtedly carry that image with me the rest of my life. 

After the sunset we decided to call it an early night and we all headed back to our respective lodgings. It was only 8:00 so I sad on my bed and wrote postcards for a good long while and then sat on the balcony and looked at the Duomo all lit up. 

This has been a pretty incredible trip and caused the most struggle, but no-one ever said growing up and learning was easy.

Till next time...

The Adventure

So I went to Florence, but before I could get there I had to practically part the Red Sea as it were. This is the epic tale of my travels so far. If you have been reading about my father's journey to China than this tale will pail in comparison to his and my wit is certainly not on par with his, but hopefully with age I can live up to his expectations. 

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...