Well hey there. Like I said in one of my earlier posts, this weekend my schoolmates and I had the chance to "vacation" in Florence, Tuscany. I say vacation with quotation marks, because it was everything but. Now, before I tell you how my weekend REALLY went I would like to say a few things about Florence. Florence is a wonderful city; brimming with beauty, culture, and life. I am forever grateful that I got to make this city's acquaintance however, I do wish my experience had gone a little more smoothly. Friday morning we were separated in to two groups of 30. The first group to leave at 8 o'clock and the next leaving around 9am. I, luckily, (or so i thought) was on the second train giving me more time to stay in my beloved twin-sized bed. All the students and the two professors that we traveled with met in the piazza around 8:45. Together we walked to the transportation stop where we were greeted by a tram overflowing, and i mean it literally when i say it was overflowing with people. So, like all smart college kids do, we decided that taking the tram filled already to maximum capacity would be a great idea. Now, if you know me well enough you probably can picture me cringing because I don't do well in situations where there is a large amount of people enclosed in a small space. Irritated and ready to get off the tram, we eventually arrived at the the train station. Here we found out our train, which we thought departed at 9:40, was actually scheduled for 9:20am. So with 3 minutes to spare we picked up our luggage (unforutunaly I did not pack light) and sprinted to the other side of the train station as Francesca hastily encouraged us from behind. In this situation, time was on our side but not so much for our friend Jill who was left behind at the tram stop (she eventually arrived, but I'm not sure under what conditions.) It was a stressful morning to put it nicely. An hour and a half later, after the group had finally calmed, we arrived in Florence to experience yet again another difficulty this time envolving the hotel. We had reservations at B&B (Bed and Breakfast as you may have guessed) but there was confusion about the rooming situation which set us back in our plans about an hour. While the extremely unprepared travel agent got our rooms situated, we walked to have lunch in the center of Florence. This part of the day was nice, and it was better than the last but we were all still tired and grumpy from our early morning. In the afternoon things began to get better after we checked into our rooms and were situated; but, before we knew it we were being herded by our tour guides. With mediocre attitudes we drug ourselves around Florence for 4 hours in the miserable heat. I guarantee this day I walked AT LEAST 5 miles. Although we had the opportunity to see some of the most renound art and architecture in the world, it was hard to be appreciative because of the previous events that day. Needless to say my first impression of Florence was not good. Saturday I woke up feeling rested and was positive that this day would be better than the last… and it was. I started off the morning with Professor Brogi who took us to San Miniato al Monte, which is a church that overlooks all of Florence. San Miniato is the home to catholic monks who can often be found harmonizing in the church. We didn't get to experience this, but we experience the breathtaking outlook from this old church. It was so incredible that I suddenly fell in love with Florence. Now, I'm not sure if you readers are very knowledgeable about the Florentine area but there are two things you need to know: It has great leather and HOT tuscan weather. I experienced both of these on Saturday. Despite the high temperatures we were still able to walk around long enough to go shopping. The streets of Florence are the homes to hundreds of authentic leather shops. We went into one in particular where my roommate found a bag she wanted, and the spanish man who owned the shop did not speak English but instead Italian and Spanish. It was here that my years of studying spanish came in handy. I was the voice of my roommates for the moment. I walked out with a sack full of leather and the satisfaction of knowing I really can carry on a conversation in Spanish. Later that Saturday was good. My roommate Megan and I went out to get a taste of the florentine night life and although there are not as many venues as Rome, we still managed to have fun. Sunday morning we woke up ready to leave Florence behind, but we had to wait until 4:30 to go to the train station. We ate lunch, site saw, and shopped around to kill a few hours. By that point it was time to leave then we hopped on the bus with our luggage thinking that our departure would go more smoothly than our arrival. However it was quite the contrary. We ended up at the train station with 45 minutes to spare, but the news we received when we got there turned all of our moods upside down. One of the trains that 35 of us were scheduled to be on had been delayed three hours and then four hours. We waited patiently enough just to find out that the train had been cancelled. Perfect! That is precisely the news that a group of sweaty, tired tourists want to hear. Well the good news is that we got home a couple hours later. At this point I had never been so happy to see the familiar streets of Rome. Florence was a good experience, but it definitely was not the vacation away from vacation that it was intended to be. If there is any advice I can give someone who is planning on traveling to Florence it is this:
Cheers, readers! |