I am finally in Florence, Italy, reunited with my friend Veronica. My journey here was absolutely ridiculous & deserves an individual blog post, so here it is! Let me just start off my saying that it is never smart to make your first trip in a foreign country to a place where you don't know the language...ie Italy.
My flight to Pisa, Italy departed at 4:55PM and class always ends at 1:20PM...but did I mention that the distance from school to home is about 30 minutes, on a good day?? So right after class ended I sprinted to the Metro, rode the Metro for 20 minutes, & arrived home at 1:50PM. I quickly exchanged my book bag for my travel backpack, grabbed my bocadillo, said my goodbye to Mamá Inés, & ran out the door.
I decided to take the bus to the airport because it only cost 2.40€, which is much better than the 28€ taxi ride I had when I arrived! The bus comes every 30 minutes, so the next pick up time was at 2:15PM. I made it to the stop with 5 minutes to spare! I allotted 40 minutes for the ride in my time crunch, but we made it to the airport in 30! Things were going too well...
I got to the airport & checked in at the VISA station at the front. I purchased my tickets with a company called Ryanair, known for being slightly sketch but very cheap. They have a strict bag carry-on policy; if your carry-on is not the right size they have the right to not even let you take it on the plane! After security I went to search for the gate for my flight to Pisa...it was not posted until 10 minutes before boarding time. RIDICULOUS. But I got to the right gate asap. I noticed my backpack was waaaay too fat, for Ryanair standards, but was somehow able to run past the bag-checking people & hopped on the plane.
During my rocky 2.5 hour flight I realized that I left my Spanish cell phone in Sevilla. Normally this wouldn't be a big problem, but I was supposed to call Veronica as soon as I got to Florence so that she could come find me. With no phone, & her number in one of my Facebook messages, I realized I would be alone in Italy for a while.
My plane landed & I went off to search for the train that goes from Pisa to Florence. I think I had a bigger culture shock landing in Italy than I did when I landed in Spain! All the signs were in Italian, of course, but for some reason I was just not expecting to be so clueless. I felt like the true American tourist when I had to ask people at the small shops if they spoke English & also ask where I could catch the train. I figured out that I needed to buy my a ticket from this machine outside, but had no idea what train to board. Once again, I had to ask for help. These two girls in their 20s told me to follow them, & one of them, Constancia, was even going to Florence! Constancia was from Sevilla & she spoke Spanish & Italian. When talking to her she would accidentally switch from Spanish to Italian without noticing, ahhh!
I had to take 2 separate trains to get to Florence, & it took about 1.5 hours total. But I still had a dilemma: how the heck was I going to tell Veronica that I had arrived in Florence?! My new friend Constancia & I arrived in Fienze SMN, where her boyfriend Matteo came to pick her up. She felt bad that I was stranded in Florence, so she convinced Matteo to take us to an internet café so that I could look up Veronica's phone number.
With the number I needed, our next stop was to a pay phone! I called Veronica to let her know that I was in Florence & we agreed to meet in the big plaza with benches in front of the church...turns out there are a lot of those in Florence. After waiting at the wrong plaza, I called Veronica again & we finally met up! Constancia & Matteo stayed with me this WHOLE time & were such great help. If it were not for them, I have no clue where I'd be right now. They were definitely my angels of the trip, not even joking.
So here I am, in Firenze (Florence), & I am sooo excited to start venturing around. Until my next update, ciao!!!!!!!
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