That time I actually liked nature more than the city.

Ok, I am in love.  I am stating it here for the world to know.  I am in love with Toscana.  This place is beautiful and I do not know where these natives would go to travel, because I don’t know why they would ever leave.  Maybe I should start from the beginning.  Laura and I caught our train from Venezia to Firenze and I was ecstatic for the air conditioning.  This clearly means that everyone else was probably freezing, but I loved it and was just content.  Then when we arrived in Firenze it was a free for all for everyone.  The conductor had come through and I heard him say that we had 10 minutes once we got to Florence for everyone to get off who needed to.  This clearly resulted in everyone forming a straight orderly line and walking calmly to the exits, right?  No, it resulted in me trying to lug my gigantic suitcase and duffle through the aisle without hitting anyone in the head.  Then when we got to the door Laura said to me “Save yourself and just get off the train” but that was easier said than done because everyone before us had made a mess of the entrance way and I had to lift my suitcase up over everyone else’s.  (It was not that bad really, but in the moment I always have that panic of “what if”.)  Laura and I both made it, and Laura even got her suitcase off the train without any help because she is woman, hear her roar.

Then began the time to try and figure out where Melissa was.  “I just got here and I’m near the stazione..parked at the moment.  Text me when you get outside and I will drive by hoping to see you.  I have a dark gray fiat panda.”  This was my clue for us to find her.  Now for those of you who know me, you know that I can only recognize Ford cars.  So already I was waiting for Laura to point out a panda.  My extent of panda knowledges are limited to the black and white bears, so I was basically just looking around for any gray car and going “Is that Melissa? Nope, that is a man.”  But we found her and packed up all of our bags into the tiny European car and headed out.

When we arrived in Greve it took us a few tries to get to our B&B.  The directions basically say “Don’t look for our address, but instead go down this unmarked road at the end of this other road.  Good luck!”  We drove around and it wasn’t actually too bad.  We did find it, and it was beautiful!  I could live there forever.  The building was classic stone architecture and covered in flowers.  There were also big giant wine barrels everywhere for decoration, which was a nice touch.  We were next to a vineyard and everything smelled amazing-maybe jasmine? We kept calling the flowers sassafras, but I don’t know if we ever really figured out what it was.  After a bit of R&R we went to explore the town.  There was a little town center with some stores and restaurants that was so cute.  We ended up eating at this restaurant and the food was ok.  Melissa and Laura had good food if I remember correctly, but I had gotten spaghetti with clams and it just didn’t live up to the ones I had in Venice.  Same thing with dessert.  I got tiramisu, but it was too dry for me.  Melissa’s limoncello gelato/sundae thing was amazing, and Laura’s strawberry thing was good too.  Then we headed back to the room and sat outside and had some wine.  We played some music and ended up having a little dance party “Put you hands up their playing our song…It’s a party in Italia!”.  Inside we also pushed all of our beds together so it was like one big slumber party.  Night one was in the books.

The next day we went to Sienna.  So for those of you who have been following this blog and found my story about being confused in the grocery store funny, let me tell you about our adventure trying to get gas.  It was basically right out of “How many [insert stereotype]s does it take to change a lightbulb?”  We pulled up to the pump and just kind of had to take a moment to look at it and see what we were supposed to do.  There were three buttons on the pump €5, €20, and Cancel.  Then we couldn’t figure out if we had to pay first or pump first.  We tried several different options, and my card wasn’t working.  There was a man there with a coach bus also trying to fill up.  He tried to help us but later we were thinking maybe he didn’t know what he was doing either because he was still there when we left and then again when we realized we were going the wrong way and turned around and passed the gas station again.  Anyway, we tried several different times and different combinations of things.  Finally another man came to get gas and he did it for us.  I have no idea what he did because I was by the car and they were all by the payment machine (because of course the two are not connected), but he actually pumped our gas for us which was so nice.  It turned out my card wasn’t working because of the clearly marked sign that said they did not accept Visa.  Then we were on our way…and then again after we turned around and actually faced the correct way.

Now I didn’t know much about the city, but Melissa had read a book about the Palio so she gave us the 411 on Sienna.  A condensed version to understand what we did is as follows: The city is divided into 17 different contradas, each with their own church, flag, colors, mascot, etc.  The communities are very close knit and it is still frowned upon to marry outside of your contrada.  We walked around and tried to find as many different contradas as we could.  We also got to see one of the contrada’s banner carriers practicing.  It was really interesting and impressive.  My favorite contrada was the Swan until I found out it was actually a Goose.  Then it became the Tower because it’s mascot is also an Elephant.  There were also a ton of beautiful alleyways (which if you have looked through my pictures, you know that I love).  This may have been my favorite place that we have been thus far.

The next day we hung around the B&B and just relaxed.  We went into town and got a ton of different kinds of meat and some cheeses, then we picked up some wine from the B&B (they had their own brand) and made our own spread.  This was the day that except for breakfast, I only drank wine.  This was an awful decision, but my nap was a very deep sleep.  This was the only day we ran into some rain.  After my nap, I woke up to both Melissa and Laura gone on runs/walks and the sound of thunder rumbling in.  I love rain, so I was fine with this, but I didn’t want the girls to get stuck someplace.  The weather must have ended up clearing up, because we went to dinner in town and I believe we walked.  It was a small place with a lovely older woman who took care of us.  The food here was AMAZING!  Everyone’s meals were delicious and I wish we would have had time to go back there again.  All in all it was the perfect lead in to the next day, which was sure to be a long one.

Tuesday morning we all woke up early and started our day.  We grabbed a quick breakfast at the main villa and then started our drive to Cinque Terre.  Well, before we left Laura thought she might get motion sickness so I offered her some of my medicine.  It ended up with me basically drugging her and her sleeping for most of our drive.  Oops!  At one point after we figured out what had happened Melissa said “That was our plan. ‘How can we get Laura to be quiet for 5 hours? Let’s drug her.’”  It was really funny, but I still felt bad.  On the plus side, she didn’t feel sick!  We stopped at Lucca on our way.  This place was cool!  The whole city was inclosed within a huge wall, and part of it looked touristy, but part of it looked really residential.  We were on a time crunch so we only spent a couple hours there, but I am glad we went.  I had some of the best pastries at a little bakery there of my whole trip.  I can still taste the glaze.

After Lucca we continued on to Cinque Terre.  Here are my thoughts on CT: Not worth it.  I got some really great pictures and I am glad we went, but I probably wouldn’t go again.  However, if you like to hike, this will be a completely different experience for you.  There are a bunch of different trails and a time estimate for how long each one would take.  One trail estimated about 12 hours.  Obviously, this was not the place for me.  But the way that everyone talked about it, I know I would have been sad if we didn’t go.  On the way back we had briefly talked about making another stop but I am glad we opted against it.  We did pass Viareggio though on the way and I wish I would have planned better and maybe we could have gone there.  Oh well, next time.

Wednesday was probably the best day we have had so far while traveling by bus.  After breakfast and one last jaunt around the town, Melissa drove us to the bus stop and we said our goodbyes. Sad times.  This week with Melissa had been great, I love that lady.  She had some setbacks on the trip, but she powered through and didn’t let it ruin the rest of her trip.  When the bus came, it was the first bus we have taken that was more like a coach bus AND the real bonus was that the driver was able to put our luggage underneath.  For once we were not crammed into a little space with multiple bags while other people were trying to walk up and down the bus to get on/off.  However, I had forgotten to take any motion sickness medicine so I spent the ride staring at the bald bald head of the bus driver in the mirror to have something to focus on.  He was the nicest public transportation driver I have met in Italy.
So our accommodations in Florence were through AirBNB, and so the woman who owned the place had to move us to a different apartment because the person currently in the room we had booked wanted to stay another night.  She said she could move the other guy, but the other apartment was going to be the same price and only five minutes away so we were troopers and agreed to it.  Up 5 flights of stairs later, let me tell you I was regretting this.  Then we saw the apartment and it was really nice and very modern.  Everything was fine.  We went out for a little bit, but basically ended up catching up on WIFI and relaxing.

The next day we set out to explore a little bit and also find the school where I was having a meeting a next day.  If I had thought Venice was confusing, Florence was just as bad.  If you were looking for big things like the Duomo, it was no big deal, just look up any and you can probably see it.  But I was looking for a specific address on a street.  They have TWO sets of numbers and no one seems to find this weird.  I was looking for number 85, but I didn’t know if I was looking for Blue 85 or the stone 85.  Laura and I walked this street the whole length, and I asked a man in a store for help.  He was not helpful.  Finally he just asked what it was I was looking for and I said a school. His response: “Just go down this road and it’s towards the end.” “Ok, is it on the left or the right?” “It’s not on a side, it’s just at the end of the road.  It’s not a very long road, just keep going.” “It’s not on a side?” “No, it’s not.  It’s just at the end.  There is a school there.” “Ok…thank you?”  Needless to say, we just walked until we found it.  At this point I was convinced I hated Florence.  I even said that to Laura essentially right before she found the building.  She reminded me that every new place is hard to navigate and you just have to get used to the city.

That night we went out to dinner with Ailun (the hostess) and a couple of her other guests staying at the apartments (Jessica and Natasha).  It was nice and fun.  We went to a local restaurant that had some really good food.  After dinner we moved to the other apartment.  It was weird because Ailun had made it seem like we would be staying in the one place since the other room had been occupied, and so we had unpacked all our stuck and gotten a few groceries, and then we had to pack everything up again, lug all our stuff down the 5 flights of stairs, and go to the other apartment.  Luckily the other apartment was close and on the first floor (which in Italy still means one flight of stairs, but not bad) and it meant that we got to hang out with Natasha!  She is basically the best.

Friday morning I left for my meeting.  I got there a few minutes early, I looked presentable, and I was ready to see what this program had to offer.  The woman gave me a tour of the facilities in both buildings, took me to the pastry shop that is run by the students, got me a free coffee, and went over what classes were in the program.  Let me just tell you that this program has everything I have been looking for.  It focuses solely on Italian breads, cookies, and pastries. It also has an Italian language intensive program, internships available, and classes/seminars in topics such as gelato, chocolate artistry, and different wines.  Downsides are: Florence was not my favorite place, but I could live outside the city; I am really homesick right now and I would like to stay home for a while, but if I do this program I would be home for about a month before I would have to come back, and I kind of feel like this trip has already taken a chunk of my savings, I will have to review my financial situation before I make an official decision.

Other than that, we did some exploring and hung out with Natasha and Karan when he came into Florence to start a class he is taking there.  All in all, the weather was nice, cool but not cold and still sunny, and the city started to grow on me.  I still think if I were to go there I would want to stay outside the city, but who knows.  Ailun flipped the last night on the other guests and was basically completely irresponsible and immature.  She had never been completely responsible while we were there but we were mainly self dependent so it wasn’t a huge deal, but about 8 hours before we were getting ready to leave, she flipped the switch and went to crazy town (this included yelling at the new guest from the Ukraine who was a total sweetheart about something that was her own fault).  Let’s just say, we were all thankful to be leaving that next morning and to be done with her.

Now we are back in Venice and I feel almost like I have come home.  We are staying where Laura had stayed before, so I kind of feel like a guest more than I am back in the safe cocoon of familiarity, but that might just be because I am tired.  I am really happy to be back.  Next week when we leave for good will be rough.