With two weeks off before the beginning of the semester, I decided to take a four day trip to the peninsula of Italy. I, along with my traveling buddies (Jon, Kevin, and Hanna from Arizona, Alex from Mexico, Brian from New York, Topher from Chile, Mark from Ireland, and Andrea from Columbia), flew into Pisa on Tuesday evening and then hopped a train to Florence.
Florence was a nice city, but the streets were a bit crowded with cars and people. As a group, we had not made any plans for accommodations before leaving. That was a mistake. It was around 830 PM that we arrived in Florence, so most of the hostels and hotels were full. After some looking, however, we did find a youth hostel. It was placed deep within the woods, which meant we had to walk down a long, dark, dirt trail to get to it. It was like a scene out of a bad horror film- the group of us walking through the woods at night, trying to get to our youth hostel. It wouldn’t have surprised me if we made it there missing a few limbs, or people. Luckily we all made it, and the youth hostel was pretty nice as well. It cost us 17 euros per person for the night, and that included breakfast. There were many older people lodging at the youth hostel, which I found strange and which prompted Brian to ask, “Since when did youth hostels become the cheap old bastard’s hotel?“.
Our hostel in Florence.
We were, all of us, quite starving, having not eaten since we left Germany. It was a long way to the middle of the city, but we caught a bus and made our way to the cheapest restaurant we could find.
Should you ever find yourself in Cafe Angelo in Florence, I would not suggest getting the lasagna. The portions we received were quite ample, except for the pour souls who ordered the aforementioned entree. I ordered a pizza, which was almost spilling over the sides of the plate. Mark, Jon, and Kevin unfortunately ordered the lasagna. They were each brought out little squares, samples, if you will, of the beloved Italian dish. A look of utter disbelief shown on their contorted faces as the plate was set in front of them. Mark sat with his arms folded staring at the dish for about five minutes before looking up and asking in his thick Irish accent, “Tis is a joke, right?”. The only explanation is that Cafe Angelo ran out of lasagna and had to cut one serving into three. The rest of us had a lovely time laughing at our dispirited and hungry mates. I still smile when I think about it.
After the boys finished their snack, we walked around Florence for a bit, but made it an early evening because we were all tired from the travel. The beds at Ostello Villa Cemerata were comfy enough, but the sheets smelled of something unpleasant. We had to keep the window open all night because it was just too hot and, by doing this, let every bug in Italy into our room. I had to sleep with a shirt over my head so the mosquitoes would stop flying into my ear. We all woke up the next morning covered in bug bites.
Breakfast, if you would call it such, was a stale croissant wrapped in plastic and orange juice, which tasted like it was freshly squeezed with someone’s armpit. Mmmmm.
Our agenda that day was to snoop around Florence for a bit and then take a train to Rome. As we walked down the street we spotted a bus which would take us into the city. Thinking we were going to miss the bus, we started running. Unfortunately, and ironically, we were running away from the actual bus stop. It must have looked quite awkward to the natives when they saw a large group of kids point and yell, “Bus!”, and then run away from it.
Since we were only staying in Florence for the day, we had to carry our bags around with us. We stood in line for about 2 and a half hours to see the David. When we finally made it to the front, we were told we couldn’t go in because our bags were to big. At this point I think we all crapped ourselves, then we regrouped and came up with an ingenious plan. Half of us went inside the museum while the other half watched the bags outside. We are such smarties. Kevin and I wandered while the other group was in the museum. We went inside a McDonalds where they were blasting gangster rap music. It was awesome. Before leaving Florence, we also visited the beautiful Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral. It was massive.
Line for the David.
Kevin, the stud.
At the train station I paid 1.20 euro for a banana and then crapped myself again when I realized I paid 1.20 euro for a banana.
We arrived in Rome at about 4 in the afternoon. Our first priority was to get a hostel and that didn’t take much effort. We were accosted by a women, who offered us a room in a hostel not too far from the train station. The hostel was very small, only three rooms, and at only 20 euros per night, it seemed too good to be true. Jon and I joked that we were going to have our kidneys removed in the middle of the night. The whole thing seemed a bit shady to me, but it was a nice hostel and we had our own bathroom so I was willing to take a chance.
jlk
