Here I took a "People Mover" (a short-distance tram thing) from Piazza Roma to Tronchetto, a little island next to the city where long-distance buses and cruise ships stop for Venice. I was there with all of the time in the world to spare. The Megabus I was taking to Florence was sitting there with everyone crowded around it waiting to get in.
Finally, around ten minutes before we are about to depart the driver comes out and starts handing out luggage tags-some people are going as far as Naples! Florence, as it is the first big stop, is the last to be loaded into the hold.
The bus trip starts about ten minutes behind schedule, but having taken Greyhound buses that didn't leave the departure city until we should have arrived in the destination city, ten minutes was nothing. It starts off fine, I made "eye-contact and smile" friends with a girl. Mostly we were both traveling alone and sitting in the same area, but we didn't talk to each other, instead just made lots of eye contact as we blatantly stared in curiosity.
About two hours into the four hour drive, there is a loud metallic bang, and the bus starts wobbling and hobbling. The driver pulls into the (very small) shoulder to see the problem. We've blown a tire. Whoops.
We make it to the nearest "SOS" stop. The driver says he has called for a repair guy and another bus, so we'll see who gets there first and what is faster-it will probably be an hour or hour and a half though. In Italian time this translates to between an hour and half and forever. At least it is relatively cool out, so we are not standing around in the beating sun.
Everyone rushes to the minimart/mini self-service restaurant. I'm not that hungry but I go along anyway because what else am I going to do? I wandered around the super marked-up shop, then go back outside and make more super awkward eye contact with this girl. I sit around for a bit, watching everyone. And sitting. And watching. And sitting. And watching.I finish the blog post from the day before. I text everyone and their mother a picture of the blown-out tire.
Finally, I'm hungry, so I go back to the shop and get some yogurt and peanuts (I've gotten really into peanuts lately, I don't know why). More awkward eye contact with this girl, unfortunately I've already gathered that she is Italian. And my Italian skills, though sufficient to order ice cream and get peanuts at a bar, are not enough to make friends. So.
After I finish the yogurt, I open the peanuts, and they are the saddest looking things I have ever seen! So dry, and chalky. WHAT IS EVEN THE POINT. I ate some anyway, so I guess they weren't that terrible.
We wait some more.
And more.
ANNNNNND more.
I message the hostel on AirBnB and tell them I'll be late.
And wait some more.
I talk to a guy from Russia but fail to get him to say "Boris we must get Moose and Squirrel".
And then wait.
Finally, a little grey van (or "pullman") pulls up. The bus driver says a few things in Italian, but he is so far away I don't hear him well, even if I could have understood him. Everyone rushes over to see what the deal is, and the driver says he is going to unload our bus, because the other bus should be here soon. Once the bags are returned to their owners, the bus driver says eight people can go ahead with the little pullman.
Chaos erupts, everyone wants to get in the van, and the bus that was supposed to be here "soon" hasn't appeared. Everyone is raising their hand and yelling at each other and the bus driver. I went and sat on the curb a ways away, Florence has been around for a zillion years, I'm sure it will be around if I get there a little late.
Nothing happens, and we wait.
And wait.
I make friends with an Australian family from Melbourne. They're traveling around Europe, then going to Japan, then back to Australia. I was a little bit jealous. Lil bit.
Finally, a big green bus appears and pulls in next to the Megabus. We reload it with our luggage, then climb aboard, a little over two hours after we pulled in.
The hostel is theoretically a 15 minute walk from the train station. Unfortunately this does not factor in having a suitcase and Florence being literally wall to wall with tourists walking slowly, so it takes me considerably longer to get there.
Once I do get there though, I meet the host/owner who shows me where everything is. I'm in a four bed room, and my other roommates are from France, Germany, and Brazil. My phone is almost dead at this point, so I try to find an outlet that fits the adapter I have-In Italy there are several types of outlets. Apparently you just have to hope you can find one that fits your device. I couldn't find one, so I head out to buy one (the adapter I have seems to be the least common one, so I had been meaning to do so anyway), and also to find a grocery store to collect dinner things.
What I find is not quite an adapter, but instead just a normal plug that you can stick your USB cable into. I buy it, mostly just hoping that this one will fit an outlet in the room because I have no idea really, then go to the grocery store to pick up some dinner and breakfast things.
At this point I had already asked my friend who studied abroad in Florence (whom I visited a few years ago) about where to find the sandwich shop we went to. She also told me where to go for gelato, so obviously I headed there in the evening.
Now, I wasn't really sure when this place closed. And I was a little concerned, given that as I walked there (conveniently just a few minutes away) most places were closed or closing. I didn't have too much hope, but when I turned the corner I was extremely pleased to see that it was still open. Whew!
That's when I saw them. There were maybe fifteen of them, twenty at most. Their leader was at the front, carrying a large stick and rattling off facts about the city as she herded them towards the gelateria.
I had to get there first. I didn't want to get stuck behind a zillion people in line! So I picked up the pace, and made it there just in time. Whew.
What I noticed about gelaterias in Florence is that the larger the amount of ice cream you get, the longer the ice cream cone-as opposed to a wider mouth of the cone, the cones just get longer. Unless you are packing the ice cream into the bottom of the cone this just seems inefficient to me, though it is funny to watch people walk around with such long skinny ice cream cones.
Anyway, I got marscapone and santa trinita (chocolate and vanilla), then went and sat on the Santa Trinita bridge and enjoyed the view of the Ponte Vechio.
Did I spend longer than I would have liked at an SOS stop in who-knows-where, Bologna? Yes. But I can't complain about a day that ends with gelato in Florence.
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