The Adventures of Studying Abroad: Spring Break Part 3

Firenze/Florence

March 23^rd

We weren’t supposed to leave the train station until 11:11 a.m. but we ended up being at the train station 2 hours early. We didn’t have a specified time that we could use our ticket so we ended up boarding an earlier train. They never checked our tickets on the train ride which kind of made me mad because we basically could have taken this train for free, along with everyone else on the train. Again for this hotel we had no idea how to get there from the train station. Thank goodness for TripAdvisor.com because I read reviews before we left stating that bus 22 was the bus to take in order to get to the hotel. So we decided that we would try it out and watch the stops, hoping that we would get off at the correct one. We ended up finding our stop just by watching the street signs which was a big relief.

We arrived early so we were worried that we wouldn’t be able to check in. Thankfully our room was ready at the Diva Hotel so we went up to our room and dropped off our things. We then took the city bus back into Florence and decided to walk the streets. We went to Florence not knowing what there was to do there. We heard it was gorgeous so we just picked it as a place for our spring break. When we started walking the city we found the Duomo and walked in to find ourselves standing in a beautiful church, with many people lighting the offertory candles. We could have paid money to go to the top of the dome on the Duomo which looked over the city but we were too cheap to do it.

We ate a cheap lunch by getting grab and go salami sandwiches from a little café on the street. We ate dinner at a nice restaurant where we both had tortellini with meat sauce and bruschetta for 23 Euros. We found more gelato in Florence but it was much more expensive than we had seen it in Rome or Pisa. Some were charging 15 Euros for the big cups. Jacob found a place serving “Mars” and “Kinder” flavor, (both candy bars) and spent the money since his goal was to have gelato every day of spring break. It also reminded him of his Grandpa Peebles because he loves Mars bars. I love how everywhere we went on spring break we were always reminded of our families.

We watched BBC news that night and watched all about the Libya, Syria and Japan crises. Also the bombing at the Jerusalem bus station. It made me nervous specifically because we had been using bus stations all during spring break and things can happen at any time. Also one of the main points of planes leaving for the airstrike over Libya was from Italy. I guess I never really noticed how close Italy was to Libya until we saw it on the news. It sometimes makes me nervous being so close to these countries than when we are in the U.S. But if we lived our lives worried every day we would never go out and do anything! It’s like the saying, “Life every day as if it’s your last!”

March 24^th

We ate breakfast at the hotel which consisted of a lot of yummy danishes, donuts and croissants. Also they had ham and cheese, which completely confuses me because they just eat it, without putting it on bread or anything. And it doesn’t really seem like breakfast food.

We then went back into Florence for the day and went to a famous gelato shop called Festival de Gelato. It is in guide books and someone I know staying in Florence also recommended it. It is decorated with many neon lights and it’s very festive! Jacob got 70% chocolate and cream puff and I got kiwi. They were both really good, like usual.

Next we walked to the famous bridge in Florence where they have many locks on the railings. Just like in Paris where we locked our love on the bridge, we did it again in Florence. We just stumbled across the locks this time unlike the research of the Paris ones, and we had an extra lock on us. It was fun and now our love is locked in 2 European countries!

We crossed the bridge and walked to the Palazzo de Michael Angelo where we took amazing pictures since it overlooks the entire city of Florence. We basically got the same view that we could have gotten from going in the Dome at the Duomo but this time it was free. Seeing all of the red tops to the houses was gorgeous and I couldn’t believe that we were still in Italy. We ended up eating lunch on the top of the Palazzo de Michael Angelo which consisted of pizzas. We also met 4 people from Michigan up there which was a breath of fresh air, not only because they spoke English but because we felt like they were a little piece of home for us.

Jacob of course had to get more gelato that day so he got Snickers and I wasn’t in the mood to neither pay for more gelato or to eat any. We walked through the famous Florence Leather Markets which I absolutely loved. There were tons of booths all set up hanging with purses and wallets, everything we could imagine made out of leather. We also walked through the morning food market were we bought some dried fruit which was amazing! We had strawberries, pineapple and bananas, all of which was ten times better than the prepackaged stuff in the U.S. We continued to walk the city and found an awesome store which had homemade soaps, lotions and cosmetics called Lush. Supposedly they have some of the stores in the U.S. but none by Wisconsin. We saw some pretty cool products there.

We had dinner at the Café Duomo which was situated right outside of the Duomo which gave us a beautiful view while we ate. We both had a 9 euro meal deal which consisted of salad, bruschetta, lasagna/spaghetti and a glass of wine. Neither of us like wine so we substituted for the much more sophisticated beverage of water. While we were eating dinner Jacob spotted Jessica who goes to school with us in Scotland and we ended up talking to her while we finished our meals. We showed her the soap store and we again walked to get gelato. Jacob got tiramisu and chocolate orange (Shawn, Jacob’s dad, would have loved it), and I again didn’t get any.

While walking back we received a flyer from someone in the street, usually of which consisted of advertisements for restaurants. To our surprise it was a choir concert that was free and it was Kansas State University that would be singing. It was only about a 45 minutes wait until the concert would start so we decided to attend it. The choir was amazing and it made me miss singing in the choir during high school. They were all really nice and conversed with us since we spoke English and they asked about where we were from and why we were there, etc. We returned to the hotel and read our books like an old married couple, again.

March 25^th

We again ate breakfast at the hotel and headed into Florence again. We again walked through the leather markets and bartered with some of the sellers. It was a lot of fun and we eventually got what we wanted. We also saw people selling fake Louis Vuitton purses which was funny because there were huge signs posted saying that purchasing fake goods was illegal. I really wanted one of course, but when I thought about the hefty fine I would receive if I got caught going through security with it in the airport, I could have just bought the real thing! We also saw cops chasing them through the leather markets in a dead sprint, which was absolutely hilarious.

We bought roast beef sandwiches from the food market and they were really fresh. We watched the guy cut the roast beef right in front of us. It was also something different from our typical Italian food. We then walked to get our dessert, gelato, and I got cream puff and Jacob got strawberry mousse and caramel. We had gelato again later that night too, mine was green apple which was disgusting and Jacob had vanilla and cheesecake. We headed back to the hotel to read more of our books and relax before we had to head back to Rome the next day.

March 26^th

We checked out of our hotel room at 10 a.m. but left our backpacks there since our train didn’t leave until 2 p.m. We went into Florence one last time where Jacob wanted to get his last cone of gelato. The Festival de Gelato was closed so he got some elsewhere. Jacob had a roast beef sandwich again for lunch and I had a salami sandwich again. We headed back to the hotel and grabbed our backpacks and suitcase and headed to the bus stop to take us to the train station. We were leaving from a different train station from which we arrived which made it a bit more confusing. We arrived there 2 hours early again so we just read our books to pass the time. We boarded the train where we had assigned seats but for some reason they were taken. We paid $90.00 for these seats and they were taken? Really? So instead of yelling at these people we took someone else’s seats until we got kicked out. We ended up getting kicked out with only 20 minutes left to the ride and so we walked back to our assigned seats and the people were still sitting in them. Instead of causing conflict we just sat in the hallway of the train until we arrived in Rome. Trains are a great way of transportation it just is weird because there is no one regulating who sits where, if anyone has a ticket, nothing basically.

We made it to Rome and took another train ride to the airport so we could catch our hotel shuttle bus to the Hilton Garden Inn Airport Hotel for our last night. We originally planned on staying in the airport but after what happened in Paris we decided against that. Therefore we booked the closest hotel to the airport and lucky us, it was amazing. It had a king sized sleep number bed, heated towel rack and many other luxuries. The bummer was that we lost an hour of sleep that night due to daylight savings time.

March 27^th

We woke up at 3:30 a.m. in order to catch our flight that left at 6:20 from the Rome Airport. We took the hotels free shuttle at 4:30 in the morning. The driver was driving 140 in an 80 zone. I’m sure that’s in kilometers but still, way over the speed limit. We arrived back to Edinburgh around noon and relaxed the rest of the day and did laundry. We had an amazing spring break and couldn’t have asked for anything better except the taxi the first night in Rome. Jacob and I both decided that Florence was probably our least favorite, we are not sure if that’s because it was the end of our trip and we felt completely broke, or if it was because the city was more artsy and had mostly museums. But overall our trip was great.

And that concludes our spring break trip.

Love and Miss you all,

Hayley and Jacob