And I like this digital journal. I want to continue it for my personal journal but of course I don't want to share that. I don't know what to do. I mean, typing is so much easier than writing in my composition notebook.
But we last left off in Pisa. Sohae and I boarded the train to Florence. Now about the trains, we expected a much more beautiful countryside. We expected something like Germany. But it wasn't really that pretty. It reminded me of America with all the corn fields and such. Some of the houses were nice and quaint but we passed a lot of apartments too. Nothing too interesting.
But we got to Florence and it was a huge city. I was a little intimidated. We had to take a bus to the northwest part of town to check into our hostel. Since we were looking for cheap, we were pretty far out. So we had to take the bus into the city every day. But we were fed up with the public transportation in Italy so we just bought one ticket each and didn't validate them unless an inspector got on the bus. Our first day we dropped our stuff off and hit the town.
Luckily Sohae seemed to know where we were going so we got off and started walking to the Duomo. And on the way I say a 99 cents store and saw they had huge bottled drinks inside. "hey Sohae they have huge drinks in there.... SOHAE... I THINK THAT'S JWOWW!"
(So we knew ahead of time that MTV was filming the 4th season of the Jersey Shore in Florence and we even did a little investigating and found out which pizzeria the cast was work at. But we didn't think it would be so easy to find them on the streets. And my obsession with celebrities and Sohae's affinity with the Jersey Shore made for some exciting times.)
So after we noticed JWOWW and Sammi, then we noticed the cameras and the big bald guy telling us to move along. So we backed up and stared from a distance. Yes, we did follow them for a little while. Then we moved on. We headed to the Duomo and explored the center of town. We oriented ourselves with the city. We waited in line to get inside the Duomo but they wouldn't let Sohae in with shorts on. So we left the line and walked around some more. The BAM! We see more of the cast members! The Situation and Vinny! So we followed them too. And ran around a church to get a better look. And they walked right by us! They were like four feet away and almost walked right into us!! But I was scared and backed away. So we hadn't been in the city but a few hours and we'd already seen half of them!! It was amazing.
Well here's where my memory goes fuzzy. I remember most of what we did, but I don't remember when we did it. So here's a list.- we took two free walking tours with Italian tour guides who spoke poor English
- we get into the Duomo when Sohae had a dress on.
- we visited the two famous museums in town, the Uffizi and the Academia
- we walked to many museums only to find out who ridiculously expensive they were to get in
- we walked up to the highest part of town to get the panoramic (Piazza Michelangelo- well wort the trek)
- up at Piazza Michelangelo we visited a church and a beautiful, old cemetery
- we passed Dante's home
- we ate more gelato
- we ate lunch at an American diner (cue the Hallelujah choir)
- we took midday naps
- we got on TV
So brief details, the famous museums, the Uffizi and the Academia, are overrated and over priced. Luckily we went to the Uffizi on Tuesday night when it was free, and we went to the Academia on a day when it was raining so the line was not as long as normal. We heard horror stories about the lines to get into those museums. About having to preorder/reserve your ticket. False. Nonsense. Incorrect. Not necessary at all. It just costs you even more. And for girls on a budget, we would have rather waited in the pouring rain, than pay for a reservation, which we did. And you still needed to wait in a reservation line that was almost just as long as the general admission line! Seriously, it's a scam. *I will touch more on this when I talk about the Vatican.
Piazza Michelangelo was really pretty. Though the trek up to the top was a workout, the view was wonderful. We passed a beautiful rose garden and got to see a panoramic of the city. Then we wandered around and found a church and explored that a little. Then we discovered a huge cemetery behind the church and ambled around there for an hour or so. There were so many crypts and monuments and small family burial buildings/plots. There were also above ground graves where it looked like people might be stacked. But it was nice to just wander around a quite, virtually deserted area in the middle of the day.
We walked back down to the city and crossed the famous jewelry bridge into the city center. One of the times we crossed that bridge, we saw Pauly D and Vinny (Jersey Shore). It was so weird, we weren't even looking for them! We just saw them everywhere! So there they were and Sohae was brave and went up and asked for a picture. They said they weren't allowed to while they were filming a season. Fine. But we snapped one anyway.Twice during the week, we went to the pizzeria where they worked and went in for lunch. We purposely went in when we knew they weren't working (we knew because there weren't camera crews outside) because we were intimidated. But the second time we went, just as we were finishing our meal, camera crews walked in! We freaked out. I whispered to Sohae, "Eat slower!" So like a sloth, she continued to eat her pizza. And a crew member came up to us, (Italian accent) "We are filming a reality show here and we wondered if you would sign these release papers so we can show your face in the clips if we choose to air them."
"Oh really? A TV show? You don't say! Sure, we'll sign those papers!" We tried to contain our enthusiasm.
Then a crew member announced to the pizzeria, "They're on their way."
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
I was the first one to see them, I saw their reflection before they walked in the shop. In walked the Situation, Sammi, and Ronnie. It's so crazy that these people I've seen on TV were right next to me! Acting normal!
But we left soon after, since they weren't doing anything interesting.
Another interesting tidbit. Our hostel was pretty miserable. We were far away from the city, and it was just a pretty bad place. They didn't have a community kitchen like most hostels. They had a laundry machine and dryer, but they didn't really work. The receptionist was a pretty mean and unhelpful lady. The windows in the bedroom didn't stay closed. They locked us out during part of every afternoon. And the worse part, every night they had a DJ and social time, which is a pretty good idea, except the DJ was right below our window each night and didn't stop playing until about 1:30am. And if you closed the windows, the room became an oven, and if you left them open, tons of mosquitoes got in.
Now about the laundry. That heat wave was still going on so I was pretty stinky at the end of each day. So we did laundry and the receptionist said that the machine provided the soap. Ok. So I washed my clothes and didn't see suds. But I dried them and then got them out and smelled them. And my pits still smelled. So I plucked up my courage and complained to the front desk. (Personally I thought they were lying about the soap.) But I told her the machines were broken and there wasn't any soap. She came up with all kinds of excuses. She said it was chemical soap so it didn't sud. Whatever. I brought her my shirt and said, "Look, this still smells, here smell this armpit." So she got the manager bc her English was failing her at this point. (Convenient). I explained the situation again and he said the same thing. I told him to smell my shirt pits and HE DID! And I know my own stink, so I know it still smelled. But he tried to tell me the same thing, there wouldn't be suds. Yeah, ok. But he went upstairs with me and showed me the soap thing in the back and low and behold, it was out. So he asked me what I wanted to do, if I wanted to wash them again. And since it was the last day and we didn't have time to wash them again, I told him I wanted a refund. And he gave it to me! I was so proud of myself for dealing with this like an adult. I was really scared to tell him I was angry and wanted something to be done, but I did it! He gave me my 5 euros back and I split it with Sohae since we shared the laundry.
Sohae and I talked with our roommate for a little while. She was a Korean girl and had just come from Rome so she shared some insights with us.
The next morning we packed up, showered, and shoved off to Rome.
No comments:
Post a Comment