Florence

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It turned out that EJ was not able to go sky diving on our last day in Switzerland due to the fact that the trips were completely booked. It was, without a doubt, the nicest day that we had there weather wise and there were parachutes opening above us all day. After leaving Gimmelwald, we headed back to our previous hostel - Balmers- in Interlaken and used all of their facilities free of charge...we then hung out for happy hour and then headed off for the train station at around 10:30pm for our overnight train to florence. Arriving in Florence (at the train station on the outskirts of town - not the main one), I thought we had just arrived in Baghdad after a night of "shock and awe" bombing...trash, beat cars, the smell of urine, and homeless people were the first things that greeted us when we stepped off the train at around 7am. It turned out that we had gotten off on the wrong stop and had passed the main station and we therefore needed to take a bus to get back - which we did. The city was completely dead as we arrived at the "Plus Florence Hostel" at around 7:45am...we checked in but could not go up to our rooms until 3. Completely exhausted EJ and I both tried to sleep in the main lobby but the wicker chairs were only slightly worse than the particle board that we had paid to sleep on in the train. Basically, we had no choice but to charge the city. This was made possible by the good people at the Jolly Caffe, about a block away, that served us dirt cheap cafe americanos. Energized, we made a circle through the city covering the Duomo, St. Croce Cathedral, Piazza Vecchio, Ponte Vecchio and other crap. In our haste we had forgotten that we had long ago made reservations for the Uffizi (for 11:45am) - we finally realized this as were sitting in the pool at the hostel, proud at what we had accomplished. Still unable to check in we headed out for the Accademia (we remembered our reservation here) and looked around there for an hour or so (very cool place)...we were still pissed that we missed the Uffizi so we decided to try the line, hoping the end of the day crowds would be small...which they were (another very cool place). We struck gold on our way back to the hostel as we came across a pizzeria that was selling XL pizzas for 8 euro. We crushed. It was about 7pm that we finally checked in and were amazed at our room - a flat screen tv, nice beds, two bathrooms in the room, and the only balcony in the place. We were very tired so we just went down to the hostel bar (huge and nice) and played pool. Today we got up and headed out for Siena (by bus). Here we did the same thing; making a circle through the city - where we checked out the Duomo and climbed the tower steps. In between I had easily the greatest salami sandwhich I have ever had! We ended the day at an Enoteca that was recommended in our rick steves guide...we got lost on the way there but eventually found it and chilled at the Fortezza. We both passed out on the bus ride home. Tonight we struck gold again as we found a 1 euro store that sold huge bottles of Peroni! We will crush. Tomorrow we are taking the train to the Cinque Terre where we hope to 1) find cheap pizza or 2) find cheap beers. Until next time!

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