Italian Adventures: Milan to Florence

I can't really remember the train ride from Milan to Florence. I do remember waking up early in Milan to make an early train to Florence. I can't tell you anything about the train ride. I'm pretty sure we played more rummy (in which I most likely got my ass whooped) and probably were jovial to each other.

We arrived in Florence and immediately went to the tourist information place so we could get a proper map. We walked down a long ass street to get to the hostel called Plus Florence. It was actually a fabulous little place. A real hostel. I thought "Finally, Dave will get to have a real hostel experience." Well...no that didn't actually happen. Dave is one smart cat and got us a double room with our own bathroom for less than it would have cost each of us to get a shared room. Really, all he did was listen to the lady behind the desk and pounce on the actual deal. After checking in, we decided to walk to the Ufizi, the big museum that houses the Botticellis and various other spectacular, artsy things. We walked along the old building, watching all the street vendors trying to sell drawn portraits or watercolors of the city. We couldn't figure out where the line began or even if the line that was there was the correct one. We decided to jump on the end of the line we saw and hoped for the best. We were sandwiched in between a group of high school students from Spain. At least I'm pretty sure they were from Spain. Their particular brand of Spanish included a bunch of lisp sounds and they had all the sass of Spanish students. David and I listened to their conversations, trying to dust the cobwebs off of the high school Spanish that is stored in our minds. They were loud and the line was long. I began to shift my weight from foot to foot before finally coming to rest leaning on a metal railing. We were close enough to the door to see that no bottles would be allowed. I was still carrying the bottle of wine from Milan and I had lost the cork while we were walking. We had a choice: either down the bottle or throw it out. Dave wasn't about to throw the bottle of wine away. It had just shy of a quarter of the bottle left. So we shared (really Dave drank most of it) the wine and the water I was carrying and threw the bottle away. I smiled at the image of the pair of us: again looking like semi-clean winos. We stood in line forever it seemed. Dave and I shared minimal conversation. We were mostly listening to the Spanish and occasionally Dave's iPod. He played Franz Ferdinand's "Lucid Dreams" for me since we didn't get to hear it in Milan. The line inched closer and closer to the door about every 15 minutes. The British guy behind us checked his watch and cursed. I only remember this because the British guy looked like Guy Pierce but only slightly.

Once we finally got into the museum, I was exhausted from the line. We paid and I started to feel done with the museum after about five rooms of paintings and large groups of people. I heard more American(!) English in the Ufizi than anywhere else which was kind of nice but it mostly felt weird. The Botticelli painting of the Birth of Venus was really amazing. It was bigger than I imagined though really who thinks about the size of the actual painting?

Museums are like time warps so I couldn't tell you how long we actually spent in there BUT I do remember thinking that I was going to die. My legs and back hurt from walking and carrying my small bag with the huge Italy book. I bought a few small trinkets at the museum store and dragged David into a t-shirt store. I eyed the "Ciao Bella Italia" one but didn't buy it. (We went back the next day and I bought it then-It was still there so it must have been meant to be) We decided to eat dinner at the restaurant next to the t-shirt store. Dave ordered the gnocchi with a cheese sauce and I got lasagna.

The details are a little fuzzy as to what we did after that. I think we just went back to the hostel because we were museum exhausted, which we all know is different from regular exhausted. We were tired but really wanted to do other stuff. The room we stayed at was pretty awesome. It had a bunk bed which made me and Dave excited. Who doesn't get excited about bunk beds? I guess people who had bunk beds wouldn't or those who were involved in a horrific bunk bed accident. Dave and I do not fall into either of those categories so we were stoked. I called top bunk (for obviously reasons I think) and realized the whole thing shook like an earthquake when I was getting up there. That only made me a little nervous which must have been obvious because Dave offered to share the bottom bunk with me (it was the size of a double bed), which I declined. Honestly, when would be the next time I would get to sleep on the top bunk in Italy?

The next day we were going to tackle the Science Museum and few sites across the river. The Science Museum was right by the Ufizi. We walked down there taking in the sites. After searching for the entrance of the place for a while without finding it, I made an executive decision to skip it. We decided to walk to the bridge which had a slew of jewelry dealers. On the way there, the sidewalk was tiny, I stepped off for a moment to miss a bucket of yuck on the ground and nearly got hit by a tiny Italian car. Talk about heart attack. Walking across the bridge meant being tempted by tiny vendors selling "I heart Italia" stuff and those awesome bags that said Florence in white or gold lettering. I spied a "I heart Italia" bag as we passed one. Dave noticed and offered to stop. I said no and we kept going. (I did buy it on the way back through though-I have no self restraint) We passed by a bunch of little pizza places and touristy shops. We made our way to this one museum that had a big garden. After seeing the ridiculous price they were charging we decided to get some lunch and sit in the sun, just outside of the gardens. We walked back toward the bridge and got pizzas and two small tortas at this tiny shop. While we were eating, a few guys were playing football (that's soccer for most of you) behind us. We ate quietly, watching a creepy guy take pictures of these girls that were sun bathing. Then, out of no where, the football (soccer ball) came and smacked into my spine. My mouth was full of pizza and so was Dave's. Dave looked at me clearly shocked by the unwarranted bash in the spine and he laughed. The guy came to collect his ball and said "Mi scuzi" which is "excuse me" in Italian. Dave later said that he was going to tell me that I was going to get hit by the ball but his mouth was full of pizza. We then had the most delicious torta I've ever eaten. They were little bundles of vanilla pastry deliciousness.

After that we walked back toward the main part of the city and decided to get gelati at the place my Italy book dubbed "The best gelati in the country." After a flash rain storm, we got directions to Isla de Stinke (I only remember the street because I thought it was hilarious), stopping at a wine shop to get a small bottle of Chianti. We then found the gelati shop; it really was epic. There are no words to describe how good this ice cream was. Suffice it to say that I would buy a plane ticket to Florence for the night just to get it again.

We spent the rest of the day and part of the next day in Florence. I'm having a hard time remembering everything so I'll just tell you the highlight of the next day. We went to a church and looked at all the religious art. I can't remember the name of it now but it had a wall depicting Dante's Inferno. It was one of the things David really wanted to do while we were in Florence. We had a really nice conversation about God and religion and just spent time talking about stuff we never really talked about before. We then bought tickets to Rome and spent an hour waiting for train. We would have done other stuff but I was afraid I would be too tempted to buy more stuff so we hung out at the station just people watching. I did get a smashed one Euro cent that said Firenze (Florence) on it. We bought the slow ticket train ride to Rome because it was cheaper and we spent the next four hours (yea four) sitting across from these two German girls who spoke German, English, and Italian. Impressive thing was they would swear in all three too.

Here the link to the pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2359175&id=15933734&l=c76a423c08

Next stop: Rome