Florence, Italy

At about 4 am, I awoke to the smell of cigarettes and Italian men chatting, not the sort of 4 am whispering that one might expect, but rather full intense dialogue…what about I don’t know…but whatever their minds had conjured up on that July morning at 4 am, judging from their gut-busting laughter, it was apparently quite funny . Thankfully, I had brought along a two week supply of ear plugs – Note: If you’re planning a trip to Europe, it’s quite possibly the best $4 you’ll spend. At any rate, lying on my seeping bag on the deck of the ship, I opened one eye and did my best groggy-eyed-one-eye-open glare at the Italian men. They had no idea I was glaring at them, nor did they care; I pushed my ear plugs in a little further, rolled over and want back into la-la land.

At 6:45 am the ferry was right on schedule having left the harbor in Senj, Croatia at 8 pm and eased into Ancona, Italy at 7 am the next morning. Not that it wasn’t hot in Croatia, but the euphoria (there’s that word again) of the place provided the feeling that we were perpetually under one of those misting machines that you see outside restaurants in Phoenix or Vegas. Italy was a little different; being only 6:45 in the am and sweating, I was already longing for Switzerland.

Arriving in Ancona, our plan was to head to Florence for a day…maybe longer if we liked it. Personally, I was hoping for less than a day and I figured with the heat, it wouldn’t be that difficult to convince the boys of the same. We had our passports stamped and exited the ship in Ancona…we wanted breakfast, having not eaten since 5 the previous day…but we figured we should head to the train station first and check the schedule. It turned out that a train was leaving in 30 minutes so we purchased our tickets and waited for the train.

Generally speaking, Italian trains just plain suck…this particular train ride turned out to be our worst. We were smelly (Let’s recap the activities since my last shower – Dinner in Dubrovnik, a night of clubbing in Dubrovnik, 3 hours of sleep, a 5 hour car ride to Senj, public transportation in Senj, walking around 100 degree Senj for an afternoon, seriously contemplating jumping into the disgusting water of the Senj Harbor, Dinner in Senj, an overnight ferry ride to Italy). Now, smelly, dehydrated, exhausted and starving, we boarded an hour and a half Italian train ride from Ancona to Bolonga where temperatures on the train approached 90 degrees. I felt like an animal on this train. My stink level was approaching 8. The average stink level of persons on the train was a 9.2.

We changed trains in Bolonga and headed to Florence. Our connection time was about 15 minutes…enough time to put a Euro in the machine and wait for an espresso to come out. Everywhere we went in Europe, the coffee was amazing – except for the coin operated espresso machine on the train platform in Bolonga…which made me wonder if there was an old Italian man locked inside the machine mixing espresso beans, refined sugar, runoff from the train platform after the last rain, and diesel fuel. My brain told me it was caffeine, and for that, I was grateful.

We rolled into Florence at about 1 pm. (If you’re counting, it’s now been 20 hours since we’ve eaten anything). Anyone who knows me knows that because of my freakish obsession with exhausting myself with a ridiculous number of sporting activities, I’ve trained my body to eat every two hours. After 20 hours, my stomach had not only eaten itself, but it was beginning to feed on some of my internal organs.

Exiting the train station, the last thing I wanted to do was talk to an Italian man trying to rip us off. For whatever reason, we listened. The Franz Family Bed & Breakfast. Ok, how much? “75 Euros” We turn away and discuss among ourselves. “60 Euros” I said. Mr. Franz apparently thought that was funny – because he started laughing at me (we were still a little naive about Italians at this point). “This room is safe, clean, and right downtown” (At least that was Benny’s translation of Mr. Franz). “75 Euros” He said again. We all looked at each other. “Ok, we’ll take a look”.

This room turned out to be one of our best decisions of the whole trip. If you’re counting, I was approaching two days of no shower…now came one of the toughest decisions of the whole trip…shower or go eat? Figuring I’d probably kill someone with my stench, I chose to lather up. At 4 pm – tired, dehydrated, starving, but no longer stinky, we headed down for some grub.

The temperature felt like 120 degrees. The air was thick. The first street-side café we found was a pizza place – we looked at the menu…pizza for 8 Euros…ok. That’s reasonable. Side note: I know my disdain for the international status of the dollar has been well documented in my Europe blogs but think about it this way: imagine taking a trip to New York City, spending a weekend there (lodging, food, transportation, entertainment) and then multiply your total expenditures by 1.4. Welcome to Florence.

Ok, I know we’re in Italy, but the last thing I wanted at this point was more alcohol. “Coke Lite” I said. The waitress brought me a nice refreshing Diet Coke in a can. It was everything I had hoped it would be.

We got the bill. Now, I had learned in our friendly little town of Senj, Croatia to examine the bill very carefully – our server had tried to charge me for 2L of wine when I drank 0.2L. (If I had drunk 2L of wine, he could have charged me his salary and I wouldn’t have noticed).

Back to Italy, I examined the bill: First charge 6 Euros for something we couldn’t identify – I told the server – “We didn’t have this.” “That’s the seating charge”, she said – which is a nice way of saying – “That’s $9 that we’re charging you because you’re American, stupid tourists, and because we can.” I scrolled down the bill a little farther. “Coke Lite – 4 Euros”. Remember our friendly little exchange rate? If you round up – that’s $6 for a can of Coke. We walked out of our little pizza place with a bad taste in our mouths.

From that point on I was angry. Angry at Italians. Angry at Florence. Angry at the street vendors. Angry at the heat. Angry at all of the garbage on the streets. Angry at all of the men in their little white capri pants. Angry about the exchange rate. Angry at the beautiful architecture and the history of Florence. I think I was even angry at the Pope at one point.

We went back to our little bed and breakfast for a nap. What a difference three hours of sleep can make. The sun was setting, we felt refreshed and we headed out for a night in Florence. As the sun set, we walked around and snapped as many pictures as we could. We didn’t really have a plan. We grabbed some gelato, grabbed a sandwich, grabbed a beer and then started walking.

We found a little club that was getting going early…it was about 9 pm. Right next to the river, there was a hotel, and set up in front of the hotel was a DJ. People crowded the street…really having no concern whatsoever that cars might want to drive through. We saw police and they didn’t seem to care. I guess that people control the streets there. Anyway, we grabbed beers and perched ourselves on the wall by the river and talked…watched people…talked about people…and discussed the propriety of men wearing white or salmon capri pants. Little did we know that our little perch on the wall would end up being a smorgasbord of entertainment for the evening.

The first plot began as a man on a motorcycle sped through the crowd of people, nearly killing someone…a policeman was quick on the scene and issued the gentleman a ticket. Just then tall ridiculously gorgeous Italian woman walked out of the hotel in a white dress and high heels. We watched her hike up her dress, hop on a scooter and blast away in her high heels. “That was cool” we thought.

Not to be outdone, an equally gorgeous woman and her semi-attractive friend (which became a hot point of discussion between the three of us as to whether or not this girl was “hot”) began honking her horn. Her little Volkswagen was wedged between a car in front, a car behind, the sidewalk and hotel to her right and another car illegally parked to the left. We examined the situation. “No way out” we said. The girls didn’t really know what to do…so they honked and honked and honked. The honking went on for 30 to 40 minutes.

To our right – hundreds of people; thumping club mixes; dancing on the streets…to our left – the continual sound of a Volkswagen horn.

Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better two girls stumbled up in front of the hotel and took the keys to their car from the valet man. One girl sort of fell into the driver’s seat…and then just fell over. The three of peered at the two girls, interested in what was going to happen with this new sub-plot. Just then, the girl who wasn’t passed out panicked, looked across the street and started to screaming “help!” at all interested parties. We looked at each other, set our beers down and sort of anxiously trotted towards the car. Just as we got there the passed-out chick half opened her eyes and started laughing. The concierge from the hotel rushed her a glass of water so we turned around and walked back. As we moseyed back to our riverside perch, the girl sat up and hurled all over the street.

A few minutes later, the two girls drove away; meanwhile the honking continued to our left. After about the ten minutes the tow truck finally arrived to tow away the illegally parked car. The girls finally got their Volkswagen out and we all cheered as they drove away.

We left our perch on the wall, truly fulfilled with our night’s entertainment. I’m not gonna lie though, none of us shed a tear when we boarded the train the next morning bound for the Alps.