Sara the Vagabond in Siena

I've heard Siena is really beautiful and it is my best friend's favorite Italian city so I set off to see what the fuss was about.

While trying to figure out how to get there online, everyone said the bus was better (faster and cheaper than the train), but any links to bus sites were broken. After much searching and searching I finally found what seemed to be a current schedule and information on where to take the bus from. I let myself sleep as late as I wanted since I was tired out from the previous day, so I ended up getting a bus to Siena at 11. 

If any of you are in Florence and wanting to go to Siena, do not take the bus if you are prone to motion-sickness. It is a windy and bumpy hour! Once we got to Siena I was not entirely sure what I wanted to do. I knew there were lots of churches and things to be climbed. But I am one who would prefer to walk around and stare and oggle and gander at lots of architecture from outside than wait in two-hour lines in the sun (not that waiting to gawk at architecture from the inside is bad, just not always my thing). So I stared and gawked and ogled various buildings, until I met up with another au pair I had talked to on facebook.

We walked around a little bit, then stopped in to have lunch somewhere. Although we were only getting pizza, it took forever and a day to come out. Not that I want pizza to come out right away, because that is suspicious, but it was forever and a day!

After this we went to get tickets to climb the Torre di Mangia and something else, but it was later in the day and they were all sold out. So instead we went inside the museum, which ended up also having breathtaking views of Tuscany.

In the basement there was an interesting exhibit where an artist had taking sheets of copper, then partically oxidized them to create images of statues. I liked this a little more than some of the paintings upstairs because (get ready for a pretentious statement) there are only so many paintings of Madonna and child that I can look at on a given day. 

After this we both headed back towards to bus stop, a little heat-beat. We said goodbye, then I was off on the bus headed back to Florence. On my way back to the hostel I stopped at the grocery store to get some fruit and cheese for dinner. There were about a million kinds of cheese (though still not quite as much as in Germany I think, or at least not as wide a variety), and finally I picked out a little wedge of camambert.

Not to get all Oh, well I've been to Europe you know so I know all about good food and bread and cheese and wine. But why have I been wasting my time with brie when there is camambert? WHY. I love brie, but camambert is a million times better!

After dinner I finished up a bit of planning for traveling around (As of writing this I still need to buy a bus ticket to Naples, and find a place to stay in Palermo, but I am not too worried). Then of course I ended the evening with a trip to get gelato (this time Oreo and coffee).

I tried getting my gelato in a cup this time, because it always melts so fast that in the cone you have to eat quickly and not enjoy as much or wear your gelato all over your hands. The cups at the place are quite challow though and thus it is piled high. So, getting the cup instead of cone didn't help much. Womp womp. 

Sara the Vagabond: SOS!!!

Today started early, though not terribly so. I had intended to leave the hostel with time to stop at the grocery store to grab some fruit for breakfast, but the grocery store was not open yet. Instead, I just caught an earlier bus into Venice.

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.

        

   

Sara the Vagabond in Venice

Wow, so my two months as an au pair in Trieste flew by so fast. I mean, I knew they would sort of, because my 6 months in Germany flew by. But it was so fast. So. Fast. Now I get to travel around Italy, which is exciting!

Today (I use the word "today" very loosely. As of writing this I am already back in San Francisco) was my first day travelling. I ate breakfast with my host family in the morning-I've gotten pretty accustomed to biscotti and coffee for breakfast (#italy15 #letsbereal20). The kids came down the stairs and were super excited to show me shirts they had made with a picture of all of us on it, then they presented me with my very own! It was really so sweet.

 

Several tearful goodbyes and a short train ride later I found myself in Venice. Well, Mestre, really. I took the bus to my hostel (the Venice Lagoon House), in a little village outside Venice. The owner was super friendly and showed me all around the place and gave me all the information on how to get to Venice. The hostel itself was inside a house, and there were just a few rooms, which made it feel more like staying at someone's house than in a big hostel, which was really nice.

Once I got washed up I headed out into the city which was about half an hour away. On my way I bought a half-liter bottle of water and finished it in about two gulps. It was hot. Really. Really. Hot.

When I reached Venice I wasn't actually sure what I wanted to do. The bus dropped me off in Piazza Roma, an area I hadn't been to before. The neighborhood was quiet and pretty empty so I just wandered and wandered and wandered. For a while I was following signs to go to Piazza San Marco, until I stopped to ask myself why I was going there. I had already seen it a pretentious number of times, it would be packed with tourists and I was currently enjoying empty side streets, and it would be extremely hot due to lack of shaded areas.

   

Instead I went to the Ponte Rialto, which although I know is also touristy I still like it and think the bridge is really pretty. Unfortunately half of it is under construction now, but still. Once near the bridge I found a square I remembered being near the Pesce Campanella, which was near the apartment my family and I stayed in when I was a young warthog. This was my third time to Venice since then, and the other two times I had managed to stumble across the fish market (which apparently is just a fruit market on Sundays) but unable to find the place I stayed with my parents. So, I set out determined to find it. After a little bit of wandering, and trying to remember anything I could about they path we had taken to get there from the vaporetto stop, I stepped out of an alleyway and bam there it was! Whew. I stared at it for a little bit, then took a picture-but only after making sure there were no kids standing in the window and making faces.

                                         

At this point I was so thirsty. So when I passed a place advertising 1.5 liter bottles of water for a euro I stopped in for some. 

Sidenote 1: While in Germany I started to like carbonated water a little. Now I can't get enough of it, but everyone here assumes that because I'm American I want the flat water. Which is probably true for most people, but all I ever want in my life now is carbonated water!

SIdenote 2: I hate that I keep buying bottled water. I am not trying to kill the planet! The problem was previously that I had lost my water bottle, and that I really really like carbonated water. Anyway, I have just purchased a water bottle. So no more planet killing for me. Because also recycling bins are hard to find. So my carbonated water addiction is feeding a garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean, probably.

Sidenote 3: Italy has been super hot this summer. Record temperatures (although at least it isn't Syria) for record times. I have existed in a constant state of thirst, so much that I forgot what it felt like to be hydrated. But after downing 1.5 liters of water (a total of 2 now) I remembered! Wow, hydration is great.

Anyway, so I took my giant bottle of water and sat by the canal and watched boats for a really long time. Then I stood up again and started walking and wandering and walking and wandering. And also stopping in shops for a bit of AC.

Finally, I was hungry. So I went to the usual pizza place (Ae Oche Pizzeria or something along those lines) and got a pizza with brie and walnuts on top to go, then went and sat by a canal and had a picnic. Apparently it came with a free soft drink, so although I already bought my water bottle at that point, I got another half liter bottle of fizzy water. 2.5 littles for the day! I don't think I have been that hydrated ever.

                                    

Anyway, the pizza was interesting. It still had the tomato sauce/mozzarella base to it. If I were to make it I would definitely use pecans instead of walnuts, and I would maybe add arugula. I wouldn't use a tomato sauce, but I am not sure what alternative would be good. Still though, I enjoyed it and it was super filling.

When I got back to my hostel I was exhausted and pretty much ready to pass out. The owner was inviting everyone to have a glass of wine with him, which was so nice and sounded lovely, but I was too tired. So after catching up on emails, letting people know I was alive and in Venice, I fell asleep.

     

P.S. Apologies for any weird formatting or spelling errors. I'm writing this on the Blogger app and I can't control the formatting as much. And there is no spell check. So. Here's to hoping I can somewhat spell!