Florence!

OK So I think I'd better write this down as it has been a classic day so far and it's only 2:30pm!

It all started last night when I was about to go to sleep nice and early around 10pm. I had organised the taxi to take me to the airport at 4am so I was gonna hit the hay early. However I made the fatal mistake of turning on the telly. A super duper awesome program was on - World greatest robberys! woohoo! Me and Matt watched it a bit and he went to bed with a bit of a passing comment asking me if I was even going to get any sleep! I laughed it off and said 'after this'. Well unfortunately, my prophetering skills were not working well and it did not go that way. After that program was an oldish 80's movie about the Kray twins Reggie and Ronnie. Very interesting. Unfortunately (again) it finished at about 1:45am eeek!! I double checked my alarm clock and went to sleep... and I think I was so tired I had trouble falling asleep for a little while... grrr.

Anyhow, the alarm went off at 3:20am and I jumped into the shower and did the bathroom stuff and then got changed and had a little brekky. I needn't have rushed as the taxi driver was 15 minutes late anyhow... but he still managed to get me to the airport by 5am so all good.
I almost missed the flight though - I'm usually so anal about planes but this time I got close to missing it. The key thing to remember here is that the budget flights I got, well, they don't call the boarding for your plane sometimes, and if they do it's sometimes in a rather hardcore accent haha. So I missed it, and I had my back to the queue, and then I started to doze off. Luckily at one point, my head drooped rather violently and I woke up to look around and see my queue almost empty, only 1 person left in that queue. I quickly got up and headed for the queue, they were roping it off when an attendent lady saw me and asked if I was going to Pisa, I said yes and she checked my passport and boarding pass and then told me to "Hurry Up!" haha I had to run outside on the tarmac and run up the ladders to the plane and then I had to take those looks form the other passengers as to "ooho you've made us late!" haha well I thought that anyhow... I don't think I made the flight late.

So I arrived in Pisa. All by myself, with no idea how to speak the lingo. I had figured out a few days ago that I would now have to catch a train into Florence (as that is where I am staying tonight). I originally thought I would just walk into Pisa and catch it. It seemed like a good idea at the time but now, in a strange place for the first time and not knowing basically how to speak any Italian I was having other thoughts. Then I got lucky and walked past a ticket counter selling tickets for the train to Florence. woohoo... and even better were 4 British women buying tickets, and they were asking all sorts of questions, to which I overheard all the answers... Sweet! So then the fun began, I went off to get a coke and when I went out to the bus (shuttle bus) those girls weren't there anymore... uh oh. So I caught the first bus, it had no really indicative markings of where it was going so I prayed like hell. I can hear you thinking... why didn't you ask someone? I'm sorry, but Matt Scott hates pretty much, more than anything, to look like a tourist! Ask for directions - not bloody likely! So I rode the bus into Pisa and it stopped outside what looked like a train station. But the bus was full of tourists who apprently had never been there before and so no one made a move. As I was in full tilt "I'm-no-tourist" mode, I jusmped up and off the bus and made a Beeline for the station. Once again I got lucky and it indeed was the station. I found an automatic ticket machine and bought one for 4.50 Euros and then went over to the platform. I had no time to dawdle as the train left about 15 seconds after I got there... once agian I prayed like hell that a) this was the right train and b) I had the right ticket and c) I didn't have to get it validated or anything. Once again I got lucky and we pulled in Florence about an hour later, no conducter in sight... woohoo!

So here I was in Florence. I had made it to 2 major international foreign cities without speaking any of the lingo and it was still only 11:30am in the morning. I was pretty damn chuffed with myself. But my luck couldn't hold out forever...

My hotel "Hotel Constantini" was (I thought) only about a block away from the station. Nice and easy - hardly any walking right? Wrong. I just found the hotel after 3 DAMN HOURS of walking around Florence! I suppose I should be grateful at all that I even found it though haha. I had marked down the wrong location on my map book for a start and was miles away from it grrr. Luckily it was right next to another huge landmark (the Duomo in Florence) and basically just down the other end of Florence CBD really. But it is not very well sign posted and it is up on the 2nd floor. But hey - it's a nice little room and cheap for 60 Euro's for the night - I am defintely not complaining. My walk basically took my all over the main parts of Florence. I have, by accident seen teh train station 3 times, the fake statue of David 4 times and all the other statues around him as well. I've seen several different sides of the Duomo a few times and several squares and markets already. Oh, and one Irish pub where they don't speak English (or Irish probably either - not that that would've helped me). Anyhow, to find the place I didn't acctually have to drop out of "hidden tourist" mode and I asked a few people where the hotel was, none of them knew. But then I hit on the bright idea of asking the staff at other hotels. It worked a treat and after the first hotel I asked at, I was in the immediate vicinity in no time. And about an hour later, after still not finding it, I asked the second hotel and I found it about 10 minutes later. Huzzah!

So here I sit. I really had to get this all down. I've eaten 1 apple at 4am this morning and had two small Coke Zero's and bugger all sleep and more exercise than I care for really. So I am going to go out and maybe buy a new shirt perhaps (to look less like a tourist and more like all these very trendy-looking Italians) and also to take a few photo's I might even grab a Gelato, since I will not care about the calories today. And then I think I might even have a bit of a snooze and maybe wake up a little later tonight and go for a nightly stroll.

Cyas!
Matt