From sun to torrential downpour in Florence

It's Sunday morning and I can't wait to go back down to Florence to climb the steps. This was the one thing I hope to accomplish today - and by "steps" I can't remember if it's the dome or the tower, but either one will work for me. This will be my only day in Florence. After the Vespucci Institute, we'll head to Pisa. But first, it's time for breakfast at the hotel which was delicious. It consisted of cereals, ham, salami, cheese, yogurt, juices, fruit, toast, pastries, and Italian coffee or tea. At breakfast, I got a chance to see my friend Stéphane from Quebec! I didn't know he'd be in Fiesole for the Vespucci Institute and staying at the same hotel. It turns out that most of the hotel was filled with Vespucci participants. I'm glad I chose it.

I walked down the hill from our hotel to catch the bus and had a chance to pass through an interesting flee market set up in the main plaza of Fiesole on such a beautiful warm sunny morning.

I also passed a few sculptures which I had some fun photographing from different angles.

Bus number 7 drops off passengers within a short walk to the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. Along the walk you can find art everywhere along narrow roads and through massive doorways, not to mention an endless supply of gelato shops.

Before you know it, the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore comes into view and it's so enormous and ornate, no photo does it justice.

Wow!

There's a smaller building right across from the main church and it is called the Baptistry. The doors to the Baptistry are adorned with bronze sculptures of bible stories.

At one point, the church doors opened. I was able to get this quick shot of the priests (?) inside.
Climbing the stairs in the Duomo or the tower would require some euros and I didn't have enough. I really wanted to do this, but since I didn't know how or why I became so fixated on climbing the stairs, I couldn't really protest missing the opportunity. I know it was something that my friend Karl had mentioned to me, but getting to an ATM to get tickets and do this was not an option for some reason so I followed a podcast walking tour from Rick Steve's website. At this point I think I was on my way to the Ufizzi Museum with lots of art and narrow streets filled with people along the way.

Once at the Uffizi Gallery, the lines were long, but for four euros extra per ticket, you could get an assigned time of entry. Time for some gelato and more walking around. I saw this Martini sign and thought of my friend Theresa back in the states.

I even found the famous collection of locks. Apparently, couples add a padlock at this spot as a good luck charm.

The Uffizi Gallery was amazing. There were so many familiar works of art from a book I remember looking through so many times when I was a kid. I wonder if my mom still has that book.

After the museum, I walked over Ponte Vecchio to see the Arno River. The clouds were starting to roll in at this point, but it was still balmy outside.

From there, more walking to the Palazzo Pitti where a wine festival was taking place in tents lined along the edge of the plaza. Inside contains another museum, but after the Ufizzi, I just wanted to take photographs of the building and outside sculpture. At one end of the building you could purchase tickets, and then enter towards the middle of the building through a large archway. You can see the central archway in this picture below.
As you can see, there were lots of people sitting on the sloped plaza, enjoying wine and taking photographs. I wanted to go into the archway to see the inside courtyard, but you had to have a ticket in hand to go more than a few inches inside of the archway... until the rain started coming down in buckets. The woman in charge of keeping folks out of the archway eventually let everyone in to get out of the rain. Not just any rain, but a torrential downpour! It was unbelievable and when the rain wasn't enough, wind kicked in followed by a hail storm! A river of water and ice was literally blowing up hill into the archway. It was an unbelievable sight and something out of the ordinary according to the museum staff.

This poor guy probably wasn't expecting to be a participant in a wet t-shirt contest...

After at least an hour, maybe two, there was finally a break in the storm and the only chance to try to get back to the bus stop for Fiesole. The bus stop was at least a brisk 3o minute walk away and there were connecting buses to get there, but I got lost thinking I'd find my way back to the bus stop easily. I worried I wouldn't get off the connecting bus at the right stop and it was still raining and street signs are impossible to see because they are typically just white plaques posted on the sides of buildings at most, but not all intersections. The paper maps were reduced to shreds of paper machete material in no time. By the time I made it back to Fiesole, it was time for the reception and no time to make it back to the hotel to change out of wet clothes. Luckily I dried out a bit and warmed up quickly and had a great time meeting the other attendees. Unfortunately my shoes were soaked and would take a couple days to dry out completely. When I finally got back to the hotel, I still need some light so I read for an hour in the bathroom so I don't keep anyone awake. With no alarm clock in the room, I have to do some math to set the alarm on my tablet which has PST time and cannot be altered. I'm exhausted!

Off to Italy

Well, I have two weeks of stories to reconstruct from photos, so bear with me while I sort things out! I just returned a few days ago, and I'm still trying to catch up on things. Our journey began on Friday June 3rd, not counting the weeks of planning that took place beforehand. The itinerary was to spend one week in Fiesole for the first week of the Vespucci Summer Institute, and the second week traveling around Italy. My friend Rhonda had some time to take Sean and I to the Goleta Airbus Station for the ride down to LAX at 10:00am. I was my usual excited self.

Our first adventure started with an unusually demanding woman scheduled to take the same Airbus down to LAX with us. Her behavior was a bit odd from the start which escalated quite a bit along the way. I'm trying to remember where she said she was from... Jerusalem, Bethlehem, or maybe she just said Israel... I can't remember now.

I like to sit in front, and apparently she does too, so when I sat down in her apparent seat, she got a little huffy. It may seem awful that I saw no need to move out of a seat that she decided to claim before she even got on the bus, but trust me, the driver surely preferred that she not sit so close to him with all her demands and aggression.

She was difficult to understand and had some trouble communicating even though her English seemed perfectly fine to me. She just had zero patience with anyone that didn't immediately understand what she wanted or meant by her half constructed utterances spoken at a tempo befitting of an auctioneer.

First she demanded to have her picture taken so she could have it added to some newsletter she was babbling about, but she didn't have a camera. Then she yelled about me taking her seat. Later she asked if I had a phone, to which I said yes, and then she asked to use it to call her relatives. Of course I said no and then she yelled at me. She asked why I would tell her I had a phone if I was not going to let her use it.

Between Goleta and the Santa Barbara stop, she went on and on about her Rolls Royce and limo service company, her husband (which she demanded to speak to which was obviously not possibly), and a bunch of other nonsense. When we got to the Santa Barbara stop, there was a limo in the parking lot. She asked the Airbus driver if she could get off the bus to see if it was her husband's limo. He told her he would leave her if she wasn't back by the time he finished loading the new passengers and she went into a rage and stormed off the bus to talk to the limo driver. I can only imagine the conversation she had with that unsuspecting limo driver.

Luckily, someone at the Santa Barbara stop spoke her language so she ended up moving to the back of the bus to sit with him or her. When it was time to get off the bus, she demanded the driver collect the food she had carried on to the bus and when he refused to carry her stuff she again went into a rage and stormed off. With no phone and terrible communication skills, I can only imagine what happened to her next. Her family was supposed to pick her up there, but LAX is a big place and I highly doubt this woman would stay in one place near the curb to be seen by passing cars.

We were there with plenty of time to spare, so we walked around for awhile. Sean took this cool picture of the list of international flights leaving from terminal four, and I got a cheese burger meal at McDonald's. Yes, that's me piling french fries on top of the patty. No, I don't know why or when I started doing this...

Where's our flight on the board? It's not. We flew out of terminal 2 on Alitalia which was a Delta code share flight direct from Los Angeles to Rome. The twelve hour flight was pretty uneventful. The video system wasn't working until the flight was nearly over and all that could be seen was True Grit filled with interruptions and static. We slept on and off, read books about Italy, and I had several articles to read for the Vespucci Institute. Special meals couldn't be ordered online, so we went with the standard meals instead of dealing with the hassle of calling Alitalia to make special arrangements. I had the veal and although it tasted more like dark meat chicken, it was pretty good! It came with a side of cheesy penne pasta, green beans and cured ham, and a collection of oddly crunchy yet sweet chunks of cantaloupe. I think it may have been soaked in sugar water.

We arrived on time, even a bit early I think, and headed in to the Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport (FCO) only to find that the mobile hot spot we rented from Cellular Abroad did not work. The display read "SMS Only" so we set out to figure out what was wrong by visiting phone stores in the airport hoping someone could help us check the device or the SIM card, but no one was able to help us. Needless to say, this generated quite a bit of stress but I knew we'd find our way. I rented to hot spot specifically for Sean so he'd feel more comfortable getting around during the week while I was attending the Vespucci Institute. If we didn't resolve this Internet issue, I knew it would cause problems, but there was nothing I could do so I though it better to enjoy this new environment the best I could while trying to keep Sean comfortable the best I could. To pass a little time before we had to catch a train to Florence, we visited the tourist information office and took a few photos from right outside of the Termini station. It's Saturday afternoon, and we're in Rome!

Getting to the Termini from FCO was relatively easy although having Internet access to make sure we were going in the right direction would have been beneficial. Here's a picture of someone running to catch their train, and here's a picture of Sean.

We're on the fast train from Rome to Florence. It's Saturday afternoon, and we booked a 2 for 1 deal well in advance. Luckily the train has free wireless so we're able to log in. The scenery from the train is beautiful and so green!

It was a bit rainy and humid as we passed rolling hills and lots of vineyards. When we got to the station, Sean got busy studying the map. This is just one of many "Sean studying the map" photos I have... of him in the green shirt.

Needless to say, I was pretty excited. Sean was more subdued, likely due to the hotspot issues and the lack of help we were able to get with our inability to speak any Italian. There's a church right outside of the Florence train station. It's pretty loud. I liked it.

We decided to try to walk to the bus stop we needed to catch the number seven bus from Florence to Fiesole where we would stay for the next week. Finding your way around a city that isn't on a grid system can be a bit tricky. We stopped at a TIM store to see if someone there could help us understand why our hot spot was reporting "SMS only" and the guy there spent a lot of time trying to help us. He suggested that the device needed to be unlocked and it may not be which would make the TIM SIM card inside unusable. There wasn't much else we could do until I was able to contact Cellular Abroad, so we began snaking our way through Florence to get to the bus stop. Along the way we passed through an incredible street market filled with all kinds of leather goods. I meant to make it back to this market but never did. So many beautiful jackets in styles that are never seen here in the States.

By the time we got to our bus stop it was starting to get dark. The buildings around the bus stop were interesting, and there's a bus waiting for us!

To ride the buses, you have to buy your tickets ahead of time at cigarette shops, news stands, or at the train station. They cost 1.20 Euro and can be used for 75 minutes. You just get it stamped the first time you use it and we were quick to learn that passengers usually wait until the bus starts rolling before stamping their ticket. Our ride up to Fiesole takes about half an hour or so, and affords amazing views of Florence as you climb up into the hills. Here's Sean on the bus (studying the map of course). As we got off the bus in Fiesole, I snapped this photo. Sean will take this bus almost every day while we're in Fiesole. It makes frequent trips down to Florence.


Finally, we're in Fiesole, we're tired, and we must have eaten something, but I can't remember what. The hotel is cute and our room has two twin beds and its own bathroom with a toilet, bidet, and a very small shower stall. The view from the window included olive trees and a narrow road below. I'm so glad we made it!

As soon as we got settled, I connected to the hotel Internet access and contacted Cellular Abroad right way to get assistance with the hotspot I rented. Since it was a Saturday, no tech support was available. The customer service person who did answer was impossible to deal with and had no interest in helping us. I have no idea why they would even have a customer service person available if they can't help customers and feel the need to be rude and unsympathetic. The guy we spoke to said we couldn't get help until 9:00am PST on Monday which for us would be in the evening on Monday. That means we would be without the use of the device we rented for three whole days. It was such a hassle and inconvenience, not to mention frustrating, but with nothing else to do, it's time to rest.

Tomorrow morning we'll ride the number seven bus back down to Florence for the day before we need to return to Fiesole in the evening for the open reception for the Vespucci Institute.