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"Wake up! You're going to miss your flight! Wake the hell up" I exclaimed to Boston! She had a flight at 9am and said she needed to leave he hostel at 6:30 or so. Well, it was now 7:30. As she hurried to get up, compose herself, and pack the remainders of her luggage, she left to the airport sans a shower. I'm sure that felt FANTASTIC. I, on the other hand, got to go back to sleep.
Ah, the hostel is pretty great here in Florence. Not only was it clean, but I slept like a baby. If I remember correctly, the Academy hostel is run by two Scottish brothers. They’re really freaking cool. They’re really funny, loud, belligerent, and fun to hang out with, especially when they do the pub crawl apparently.
While having the complimentary breakfast of juice, toast, and croissants (cereal and other things were also offered), I met Alberto from Mexico City. He’s an engineer student doing a whirlwind trip of Europe on a SUPER budget. I met him while he was having some difficulty talking to another one of the people staying here at the hostel, so I translated for him.
Since
this was my first day in Florence, I figured I’d do a walk to orient myself with the city. Alberto asked if he could come along and, of course, I said yes.
Our introduction to the city started with the Duomo as you’ll see in the pics. (Get used to seeing it, I have quite a few pics throughout my blog of the Duomo haha). It’s really cool to look at, but dirtier than I expected. I’m sure it’s a difficult task maintaining such a large building, but you can see most of it is covered in what I believe to be soot from car exhausts. The façade was clean, but the rest of it…… not so much. You’ll see what I mean in the pictures.
Right across from the Duomo, is the baptistery. This is where Michaelangelo’s reproduction of Ghiberti’s doors of paradise are located. They’re the gold doors you’ll see in the pics. Apparently, at the time, depth and space in art was rare, and this helped propel art into a whole new level.
After that, Alberto and I walked by the Palazzo Vecchio. My guide book said it wasn’t that great on the inside,
so we skipped out on going in. It’s the mideival looking building with the large tower.
Adjacent to the Palazzo Vecchio was the Uffizi Gallery. It’s supposed to be the best collection of Italian Renaissance art in the world. I wanted to go in, but unfortunately, Alberto was on a super budget, so he couldn’t go in. Apparently, he’s trying to live off 15 Euros a day (outside of hostel costs of course). I can’t believe he’s kept it up this long. I guess it’s possible if you only eat sandwiches and stuff, but gives him little room to breath should an emergency or something arise. Also, it would probably gnaw at my insides to walk up to such famous museums like the Accademia, Uffizi, Louvre, etc. and not enter to see what treasures it can bestow on my eyes.
After the Uffizi, we walked by the Ponte Vecchio. This is Florence’s bridge where all the merchants would sell gold and silver and stuff. It’s not that entertaining, you just get a bunch of tourists (mostly women) drooling over jewelry. I guess the history is what’s important here though.
From the Ponte Vecchio, we proceeded to the
Pitti Palace. It was pretty large, but we didn’t go inside. We then just walked the small streets of the non-touristy areas and came across a park where we chilled and let our tired feet take a break.
Decided that walking around for this many hours was enough, we returned to the hostel. I took a much needed shower and changed out of my sweaty clothes. Refreshed and feeling A LOT better, I hopped on the computer to check my emails, etc. and see how everyone was doing back home.
While hanging out in the room, I met my new roommates. A guy from Seattle and a girl from Portland. He went to Cornell, played baseball, and is now a consultant for some company (forgot the name) and he used to work for Adidas. He’s looking to get his MBA at Harvard….lucky bastard! Haha. She was a really cool and mellow chick that just graduated high school and is doing a small little excursion to see some of the world. We all seemed to get along great, so we made plans to go out and grab some drinks for a while.
After hanging out at the hostel
for a while, I got pretty hungry so Alberto and I went tograb some food at Café Astor. As some of you may know, I’m not a huge fan of many veggies, namely spinach, broccoli, etc. When I asked what the waiter recommended, he suggested a pasta dish with broccoli, spinach, and cucumbers. He must’ve seen the look on my face, because he said, don’t worry, it’s good. He even offered to not charge me if I didn’t like it. When the plate of piping hot pasta came, it was seriously one of the most delicious meals I’ve had to date in Europe. SOOOOOO tasty.
Now reenergized and ready for more adventures, I returned to the hostel to meet up with James and Kylie. We went to this tourist bar called J.J Cathedral. It was mostly American, Australian, English, and Scottish tourists there, but there were some locals sprinkled in here and there.
While having a pint, we met these 5 girls from St. Louis, Chicago, and somewhere else I can’t remember. They were the epitome of what Italians hate about American tourists. They were loud, brash, annoying, and pretty stupid. Every other word out of their mouth
was “like”, as in “and it was, like, great”. Haha. It was pretty annoying, but after a few more pints, I learned to block it out. A couple of them were pretty cool though. It was mainly the ones from St. Louis that were annoying.
After a while, the one from Chicago and I went inside and met a large group from San Diego. A bunch of co-workers who were out here on business for a few days. One guy was SUPER hammered. It was pretty funny. He was falling asleep at the table. After chatting with them for a while, they invited me and my new friend to head with them to a club, which we did. I told James and Kylie, but they kind of just wanted to stay at the pub.
We hung out, chatted, danced, etc at the club. I then met a group of girls from New York. They were pretty damn cool, so I started to hang out with them. If you’ve been out partying with me, you know I tend to be a social butterfly and hop around from group to group. Especially when I’m on vacation.
After having some
drinks, dancing, etc. the girls and I headed back to their hotel to hang out for a while. By that time, I was so freaking tired, that I just headed back to the hostel.
Oh, funny story, I get back to the hostel, IM my friend Julez and talk to her for like 20 seconds and I fell asleep haha. Yes, fell asleep while on the computer! Haha. Julez gave me a hard time the next day about it, but oh well…… what can ya do!
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Julz
non-member comment
1) You spelled my name wrong. It's.. JULZ! 2) You trying to say I bored you to sleep?! *giving you the stink eye*