"Travel is only glamourous in retrospect."
~Paul Theroux said that, and I am beginning to agree.

Spent the weekend in Florence, Italy. Jessi and I took an overnight train there, which in itself is an adventure, mainly because I have spent 24 of the past 60 hours on trains. After doing a round-trip on overnight trains to go to Salzburg a month or so ago, I was fully prepared to never do it again, because it sounds so cool to be like, "oh, I took the train to Italy..." or even "I spent the night in a sleeper train," but the thing is that it IS NOT cool. It just bites. In case you have never done it, let me explain: a couchette is what you sleep in. It is basically like sleeping in the Space Shuttle. There are 6 beds per couchette, stacked three on each side of the space. None of them are high enough to sit up in, so once you get in bed, you are THERE for the duration of the trip. (Which, in this case, was 12 hours. Each way.) So you get in your little sleep pod, and then just hope that no one else in there will be a snorer. It’s really rather awkward, because you don’t KNOW these people, and all of a sudden you just have to go to sleep next to them. But anyway, then you wake up every 30 minutes or so when the train hits a bump or stops, giving a ridiculously bad night’s sleep and terrible bed head in the morning.

We got to Florence early on Friday morning, only to find out that our hostel (which claims to be "2 minutes from the train station") was actually 2 minutes from the OTHER train station, and about a 30 minute walk from ours. So we do the only logical thing and buy a 5-euro map of Florence that leaves out some streets, doesn’t include name changes of other streets, and is otherwise pretty typical of Italian maps (from what I have been told, the country of Italy is like the island of Tortuga: impossible to find your way around except by those who already know how). We get there and find out we can’t check in yet, but it is run by this hilarious Italian family which made up for all the confusion. We went and wandered the city, talked our way into the Galleria dell’Academia for free, where Michelangelo’s original David is housed. From there we found the Duomo– a church designed by Michelangelo in the center of Florence, 3rd largest Cathedral in the world... random fact of the day. THEN... we come out of the Duomo and somehow are in the middle of a Communist rally. Literally. Like, we walk out the doors and are pretty much swept into the crowd as they march and yell something we can’t understand because it is in Italian. Trying to go against the sea of people was NOT going to work, so we walked in their direction for a few minutes, trying to figure out what we were marching for. Pretty soon we noticed the hammer-and-sickle flags and the posters with words like "communistos" or something, and realized we were in the midst of a communist rally. Awkward. We pulled ourselves out of it, somehow, and found the most amazing outdoor market I have seen since coming to this continent. Good quality fake purses, cheap t-shirts, fun jewelry, and all the Italian leather you could ask for. Lots of Christmas shopping got done... : ) For dinner we drank Chianti (the Florentines are known for it– and it comes in bottles with those little wicker things around it) and ate Italian pizza... Yum.

Saturday we got breakfast at a coffee bar set up just like a real bar– the baristas make their own foam in martini shakers and toss chocolate flakes, cinnamon, or one of 6 types of sugar into your drink as they make it. We had planned to visit the Medici palace on the edge of town, so we made our way over there, crossing the Arno River via the Ponte Vecchio– the oldest bridge in the city and the only one not destroyed in World War II. We bought our tickets to the gardens and palace, realized it was a little cloudy, and decided to do the gardens first, just in case. The Boboli Gardens of the Medici palace of Florence, Italy, I now know, are approximately the size of the state of Vermont. But they are beautiful. So we wander, getting farther and farther from the palace, and all the time going downhill. Pretty soon we reach the most beautiful hidden fountain and reflecting pool I have ever seen... and feel our first drop of rain. "It’ll stop soon," we rationalize, "Let’s just sit and enjoy this amazing place." We get out our books and sit on the stone benches covered by squared-off topiaries, perfect. So peaceful, just like being in a fairy tale. And then the rain begins to sprinkle, but the leafy cover above us keeps us pretty dry. "Let’s wait till it blows over." And then the heavens opened. I lived in Florida half of my life, I have made it through numerous tropical storms and even one North Carolina blizzard, and I even spent one day last summer wading through waist-deep water in a valley on a mountain in Kentucky... I know what it looks like when the heavens open. And open they did. I have not seen a storm like this since coming to this continent. Jessi and I are both in light, hoodless, non-waterproof jackets... and my umbrella is still back at the hostel. "Perhaps we ought to try to leave?" We crowd under her umbrella, doing our best to stay dry, avoid puddles, etc. but within seconds of starting out, our jeans have come uncuffed and are drenched, weighing us down and keeping us from moving fast. My lightweight hiking boots are soaked through and sloshing with every step, Jessi’s cotton jacket is absorbing the rain as fast as it can fall. And we are about a mile from the palace, straight uphill. Oh, and the temperature dropped about 15 degrees when the rain started. So we march as fast as we can through the rain, over the mud, trying not to slip and not to knock the other one out from the umbrella, taking nearly half an hour to make it back to the palace courtyard (which, by the way, is beautiful and I am fairly convinced was the sight of a Zales commercial), at which point we realize our only real option (since we are LITERALLY dripping water everywhere) is to sit on the terrazza of the museum café and hope to dry off a little before we make our way into the museum. But everyone else out there is well-dressed and appears to be the kind of people who would never do something as stupid as get stuck in the rain at a reflecting pool. So we leave the terrace (with a large puddle as evidence of our departure) and make a dripping-water Hansel-and-Gretel style trail to the bathroom. I hate fleece jackets. I think they are lovely the first time you wear them but as soon as they are washed they look so ugly. That said, I own one. But I didn’t buy it– it came from lost and found at a place I used to work. Thus far, I have only worn it on long weekend train trips through Europe. I was wearing it when we got stuck in the rain, giving me the valuable lesson of Why People Actually Pay Money For Fleece Jackets. Here is the answer: BECAUSE EVEN WHEN THEY ARE COMPLETELY SOPPING WET, YOU CAN WRING THE WATER OUT OF THEM TO THE POINT THAT THEY ARE ALMOST COMPLETELY DRY. After that, 5 minutes under a bathroom hand-dryer and the thing is good as new. Genius. So we loitered in a castle bathroom for 15 minutes, drying our hair, arms, and clothing until our teeth had stopped chattering. I thank my stars for whoever left that jacket at camp– you have saved me from an awful lot of discomfort, and whoever you are, I thank you.

After wandering the palace for awhile, we made our way toward our hostel, stopping at a cozy-looking trattoria for frizzante bianca– some kind of really ultra-sour white wine drank from huge glasses at a green marble table in a tiny storefront whose walls were covered, floor to ceiling, with bottles of wine. So cozy and warm after The Afternoon Of The Blue Lagoon.
Florence was beautiful, and Italy looked just like it was supposed to... Hills everywhere, those tall skinny trees sticking up from the landscape, old towering buildings claiming residency at one point by Dante, another by Dostoevsky, and amazing flowers every we turned.

Courtyard of the Uffizi Gallery-- Florence's equivalent of the Louvre. Amazing museum, but this guy was the highlight. Oh, he is totally real. And totally the coolest mime I have ever seen. Next to him was a Cupid mime hanging out in a chimney, but this guy was amazing. We stood there for 10 minutes before he even opened his eyes.

This is a really bad view of the fountain/pool where we ended up stranded. Notice the rain already beginning to fall on the water.
In a parking lot in the middle of nowhere in Italy, we found this car. Here is Jessi and I being amazed.
And here is Jessi being confused at a random sign we came across in Alsace last weekend. And to think, all this time I thought we were ALREADY in Europe. Darn it.
Somewhere in the gardens of the Medici Palace, a girl took a bath... Me thinking it would be a good idea to jump in the bathtub of the gardens. "Oh, come on, Jessi, what's the worst that can happen? They come kick us out?" Yeah, orrrr I end up with green algae stains on the backside of my favorite jeans... either one.

Oh, the final proof that I will never be truly French: on Thursday, in the midst of my failed archaeology conversation, I realized that not only did I not know what I was saying but also I had forgotten to cut the tailor tacks out of the back pleat of the new Fiore skirt I was wearing for the first time that day. Ha!

Ciao Bella!
~B