Oh Florence! I am definitely going again, mostly because it was a holiday (For St. Florence btw, who knew?) so everything was closed early. The train ride there was almost as unbearable as the one we had out of Milan.... and then we chilled in the station for longer than was necessary. Everybody (our group was 9 people, ick) aside form me and the other veggie Leah, ate at McDonald's. And can I just tell you how much better their menu over here is than the states? A Greek burger? Caprese and Greek salad? Sweet deal! Moving on. I didn't get a chance to look at the super cheap backpacks that I kinda actually need because my group was on a dash for I dont even know. My feet still hurt from Milan by the way, so I was not able to keep up like normal, and I am no pansy when it comes to walking. I am a trooper!
Moving along, we got the best gelato yet (7 euro, eek!) but I guess Florence is where gelato was conceived so I brushed it off. I mean, It was pretty freakin' delicious. Then we breezed through the square, did NOT get to go into the Duomo, lost our tour guide, found our tour guide and then Meredith, Leah and I broke form the group because it was just too many people. We took our time wandering. Chilled in the M.A.C. store for a while contemplating make-overs. Got some white wine and some sankes, then got boxed Italian wine and went in search of a place to watch the sunset. Found a wall over looking the river instead and took a seat and waited to see what all the hub-bub was about as there were people gathering. Apparently there were fireworks at 10, which was nice.
We decided to head back and catch the next train to La Spezia but got some really good food on the way and met a nice guy who lives in La Spezia. The next train didn't leave until 12:30, and as it was only 10:45 we decided to search out a bathroom and got some cheese and drinks at another restaurant. Met up with the group we ditched and hopped onto the train and passed out only to wake up to a cranky conductor who was upset that we hadn't stamped our tickets, never having done this before we were all rather confused. He charged us 10 euro instead of 25 (5 for each who didn't get a stamp) and let us go.
Woke up in Pisa for the 1:30hr layover I wasn't aware of. And then we went on a hike to the Leaning Tower at 2:00 in the morning. At this point, I have blisters, I am not only fatigued but sleepy and rather confused. But we got there, and with some help from a nice police officer, managed to take horribly tourist-y pictures like you do. Then we hiked back. Then we waited for our delayed train, only to discover that there were no seats left in the rooms. So we sat on the ones that fold up into the wall and managed to sleep like that.
Come 4:30 in the morning we arrive in La Spezia! Hurrah! Needless to say I missed language class. And I leave for Rome tomorrow morning! I'm just running all over the place! I'm either gonna be on a roll or keel over when I get home.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
Back from Milan!
Which started out awesome, by the way, breaking my camera the night before and then cutting the back of my head open on an open window getting something out of my back.... that was fun. My roomie Leah and I had fun playing doctor.
Milan was hot. And the hostel was groady (first hostel experience) So on top of it being hot, we really didn't shower.... and all I had was a small day pack with a few shirts and a skirt because I thought I'd be carrying it with me everywhere. And I had no camera. So my goals were camera and purse. I went to the Duomo without a camera, sucked. It was amazingly beautiful! Did some shopping because I didn't bring a pretty dress to wear to the opera we didn't get into.
Then, after not sleeping well, not showering at all, being smelly, sweaty, scabby(yeah, my head scabbed) and all around gross we went to get onto a train to come back to La Spezia only to learn we couldn't get a ticket until the 12:25 train. So we hiked around to find a place for coffee and to kill time. Then we got on our train ride form hell. Heres how it went:
The first hour or so was fine and fantastic, AC was on, we had seats next to one another and we were dosing in and out of sleep; exactly as a train ride should go. The as the conductor comes 'round to punch out tickets the AC begins to leak through the lights right onto my seat. But Meredith was nice enough to forewarn me so my actual person didn't get icky AC water all over myself. Then the train stops, weird. We move along, now in icky-sticky grossness and riding B.O. Bleck. Then our train stops again. This is when the documentary started, and you will see it later. After about 45min we learn someone has thrown themselves from the train, is lying in the tracks and we are all waiting for an ambulance to peel them off (she didn't die by-the-way). Another hour rolls by and we are told (mind you we don't speak Italian, so we only know this through some nice passengers who know broken English) that we need to grab our junk and hike through the wilderness that our train stopped in to another train farther up the track, which we couldn't see, and to hop on that thing. Once we get there we hop on and find some seats. This train is much worse, with no AC, more people than it can handle and gnarley B.O. lingering everywhere and getting worse. SO we marinate in this car for a good 20 more minutes until it leaves. Then (another nice passenger tells us) that we have to get off at this stop, hop on another train(already full of passengers) and go to our transfer station. We do so. Another 40 minutes down the track we are let off and we race to the ticket counter to find out if we need to get another ticket as we missed our connecting train. Okay. As we are waiting in line this older Italian jack-ass starts to talk to us in Italian really irritated-like. Counting as us in Italian and yelling "go!" as well. When we finally get to the counter we discover all trains are delayed by an hour or so and that we haven't missed our train. Fantastic. So we go on a very unsuccessful gelati hunt. So we find our gate, and as stubborn as I am I set off on my own to scout out gelati at the Genova train station. Being the clever girl I am I not only manage to ask for directions but I get the gelati and back in record time. Then these 2 italian guys begin to hover over us and talk to us. Now, on any other normal day here in Italia, Teena would be all over this. But we were so fed up and tired (having had our 3hr ride turned into 6 at this point) that we totally blew them off. But Italian men are tricky beasts and don't take no right off the bat, being ridiculously aggressive. Eventually they finally gave up the chase much to our delight, leaving us in peace to doze or journal or whatever. Luckily nothing went wrong, and we got back on this train no problems. But our nice 3 hour ride had turned into 8, arriving home around 8 or 8:30. So we decided not to go to Venezia the next day as previously scheduled. We went to the beach instead and burned. A much more pleasant experience I assure you.
All I can say is that I plan on doing Roma quite a bit different this up coming weekend. I am ready. Watch out!
Milan was hot. And the hostel was groady (first hostel experience) So on top of it being hot, we really didn't shower.... and all I had was a small day pack with a few shirts and a skirt because I thought I'd be carrying it with me everywhere. And I had no camera. So my goals were camera and purse. I went to the Duomo without a camera, sucked. It was amazingly beautiful! Did some shopping because I didn't bring a pretty dress to wear to the opera we didn't get into.
Then, after not sleeping well, not showering at all, being smelly, sweaty, scabby(yeah, my head scabbed) and all around gross we went to get onto a train to come back to La Spezia only to learn we couldn't get a ticket until the 12:25 train. So we hiked around to find a place for coffee and to kill time. Then we got on our train ride form hell. Heres how it went:
The first hour or so was fine and fantastic, AC was on, we had seats next to one another and we were dosing in and out of sleep; exactly as a train ride should go. The as the conductor comes 'round to punch out tickets the AC begins to leak through the lights right onto my seat. But Meredith was nice enough to forewarn me so my actual person didn't get icky AC water all over myself. Then the train stops, weird. We move along, now in icky-sticky grossness and riding B.O. Bleck. Then our train stops again. This is when the documentary started, and you will see it later. After about 45min we learn someone has thrown themselves from the train, is lying in the tracks and we are all waiting for an ambulance to peel them off (she didn't die by-the-way). Another hour rolls by and we are told (mind you we don't speak Italian, so we only know this through some nice passengers who know broken English) that we need to grab our junk and hike through the wilderness that our train stopped in to another train farther up the track, which we couldn't see, and to hop on that thing. Once we get there we hop on and find some seats. This train is much worse, with no AC, more people than it can handle and gnarley B.O. lingering everywhere and getting worse. SO we marinate in this car for a good 20 more minutes until it leaves. Then (another nice passenger tells us) that we have to get off at this stop, hop on another train(already full of passengers) and go to our transfer station. We do so. Another 40 minutes down the track we are let off and we race to the ticket counter to find out if we need to get another ticket as we missed our connecting train. Okay. As we are waiting in line this older Italian jack-ass starts to talk to us in Italian really irritated-like. Counting as us in Italian and yelling "go!" as well. When we finally get to the counter we discover all trains are delayed by an hour or so and that we haven't missed our train. Fantastic. So we go on a very unsuccessful gelati hunt. So we find our gate, and as stubborn as I am I set off on my own to scout out gelati at the Genova train station. Being the clever girl I am I not only manage to ask for directions but I get the gelati and back in record time. Then these 2 italian guys begin to hover over us and talk to us. Now, on any other normal day here in Italia, Teena would be all over this. But we were so fed up and tired (having had our 3hr ride turned into 6 at this point) that we totally blew them off. But Italian men are tricky beasts and don't take no right off the bat, being ridiculously aggressive. Eventually they finally gave up the chase much to our delight, leaving us in peace to doze or journal or whatever. Luckily nothing went wrong, and we got back on this train no problems. But our nice 3 hour ride had turned into 8, arriving home around 8 or 8:30. So we decided not to go to Venezia the next day as previously scheduled. We went to the beach instead and burned. A much more pleasant experience I assure you.
All I can say is that I plan on doing Roma quite a bit different this up coming weekend. I am ready. Watch out!
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