Day 12: Friday, January 28, 2011

Today, we left for Florence!  We left our house about an hour before the train was supposed to leave, just to be safe.  However, now we know that it’s not really necessary to do that, because they don’t even put up the platform number that the train leaves from until about 5 minutes before it departs!

It was hilarious walking up to our train.  There are two options for train tickets to Florence.  One costs 55E each way, and is considered the “fast train.”  It gets you there in about an hour and a half, and the train is supposedly really nice.  Option two is a ticket that costs 29E each way, and is considered the “slow train,” and takes about three and a half hours to get there…on a good day.  Well, we obviously took option two.  And when we got to the train station, all the trains looked super nice and roomy.  Yea, those were the “fast trains.”  When we get our platform number, we walk up to this old, rickety, piece of shit train that looks like it was constructed in 1950.  And it smelled like a mix between Indian food and feet.  And, we also couldn’t even figure out which part of the train was first class, and which part was second class.  We thought we were in second class when we got on…we were wrong.  It was first class…which is never good.  So we wandered on back to second class upon figuring it out, and it sucked even worse.  And we were also unaware that we actually had specified seats, we thought it was just kind of a free for all (which was a dumb assumption).  So after getting all situated, people from the next stop got on, and it was a whole fiasco.  I ended up having to stand the last hour of the ride.  Which was fine; I was just ready to get there!

When we finally got there around 3pm, we hopped off the train and attempted to make ways to our hostel.  I had googled directions before we left, and it was supposed to only be a 12 minute walk!  Well, not the way we went.  We got incredibly lost (typical) and ended up having to just take a taxi.  Which totally sucks when you have luggage with you; because they charge you like an extra 2E for every bag you have!  And there was four of us, each with a bag, so it definitely was pricey to take cabs.  When the cab dropped us off, we literally just dropped our stuff off in our room, and then went to walk around!

Hostel: Plus Florence

We spent the afternoon exploring the city; just walking around!  We stumbled upon the Duomo, The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore.  It was absolutely beautiful.  The outside was made of white marble with green and pink.  It looked like a gingerbread house!  It was so awesome.

Duomo, The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore

Outside of it was the Baptistery.  It was like a little octagon made of the same exterior as the Duomo.  And all of these buildings have the coolest looking doors too, which just adds to the mystique.

Door to the Baptistry 

After we were done gazing, we walked around a little more, looking at all the little shops!  We passed through the marketplace, a string of streets where all the vendors come out and sell goods!  However, they literally all sell the same things: wallets, scarves, and Italy apparel.  I bought a few scarves…and a wallet J  Then we grabbed some dinner, which sucked…naturally.  I am SO sick of this food already!  It seems like you either have to choose between yummy, really expensive food, or cheap, shitty food.  Obviously we always choose the latter. 

When we got back to the hostel, we showered and got ready, then went down to the common room of the hostel and started taking shots.  Shortly after we got there, three guys came up!  One was Australian, named James.  The other two were Canadian, named Tom and Dave.  James was awesome.  Super talkative and charming.  Tom was really sarcastic, and Dave didn’t talk much!  But we all sat and drank together, then attempted to catch up with all the Lugano people who were also in Florence for the weekend!  They were doing a pub crawl, where you just go from bar to bar and get drinks.  But apparently is was an organized one with really sick deals.  We never actually found them….we found a few girls who had lost the big crowd of people somehow?  So we ended up just doing our own thing.  We went to a bar that ended up being really American.  Which is cool, and not at the same time.

Clearly a very American bar. 

Our hostel friends :) 

Its nice to not have the language barrier, but when you’re in Florence, or Rome, or Milan, or anywhere for that matter, you WANT to be immersed in the culture.  Apparently there is about 4,000 students studying abroad in Florence from the states.  So I’m really glad I’m not there.  Florence isn’t THAT big of a city.  It felt like every corner we turned, there were more American speaking students.  I really like being in Milan where there aren’t Americans every other block.  So after the bar, we headed home!  By the time we got back it was probably about 3:30; and we were actually kind of glad to be in relatively early because we had so much planned for the next day!