Travels Around Roma Part VIII: Firenze

Okay this doesn't really qualify as "around" Roma but whatever. Due to certain circumstances I had to go to Florence, or Firenze kinda impromptly. As the story goes, it was about three weeks before my program and my stay in Rome ended and I was out Friday night with my roommates like usual. Then I remembered that I had to get a purse for my sister or else she would kill me. I had already been asking girls where the best places to get purses are and they all said Firenze since they actually make leather there. Thus you have the best quality and cheapest prices. Florence is also a cool place to so I realized that I had to go tomorrow early. Since you can't really get someone to go with you with a night's before notice, I decided to go solo.

Now keep in mind I knew nothing about Florence and I only knew that trains from Termini, the main train station in Rome, went there. So I woke up early and took the metro to Termini. I only had a backpack with some food, some water, and a jacket and a class reader to read on the train, an Italy guide book from my roommate and of course my camera. That and my handy Italian skills. Oh and my wallet and cell phone and keys. I also had my handy gloves because of course it was winter time in the middle of November 2009 and it got kinda cold. My flight home was December 12th.

So I woke up around 8:30 and I got to Termini around 9:30 with time to eat breakfast and get ready since it takes about 20 min to get to Termini on the metro. I just generally made my way to the trains and I asked people Come vado a Firenze? (How do I go to Florence?) and I eventually made my way to machines that sold the tickets. The machines all have an English feature so that wasn't a problem. They were probably tired to tourists who only speak English trying to buy tickets so they stuck the machines right next to i binari (train platforms). I saw that there were two options, a €16 option that took like 3 or 4 hours and a €32 euro ticket that only took an hour and a half. Also the earliest train had left like 15 min ago so the next train left at 11.15 (remember, no am or pm here). So of course I got the cheaper ticket and I waited. Eventually the train came, I got on, and then I'm pretty sure I tried to read but I fell asleep (with my backpack in hand of course). But I set my cell phone (I bought one for Rome, not my normal one) alarm to wake me up before the train got to Florence. My next memory is at the train station is Florence after I got off. No tourist section. No maps. Practically nobody there. I was kinda screwed. The guidebook didn't really help, and come to think of it I only had the guidebook in Tivoli and not even in Florence. So scratch that. No guidebook or map or anything in some random city. All I have is my Italian and my intellect. I remember by the time I got there it was 14.00 (2 pm) so I had some time before I could catch the late train back to Rome that day because I didn't book a hostel or any sleeping accommodations. I just wanted to make it a day trip. Umm that didn't quite happen...

But first things first. I get out of the train station and its a standard neighborhood. Not in the middle of the city or the tourist district or anything like that. And of course nobody is there. Since I was taking Urban History class in Rome I noticed that one road was kind of wide and was the main road leading away from the train station; I walked down that road. Since it was Saturday at around 14.00 many things were closed and not too many people were on the streets. Or so I thought. As I continued walking I saw a bus stop with two guys. The guys were around my age so I asked them "Come vado al Duomo"? The Duomo is of course one of the main attractions in Florence and I wanted to go there and see it and probably get a purse from around there also. I actually don't remember what I first said them but that was probably it. A lesson to be learned it to blog soon after something happens and not on Jan 19th 2010 like I'm doing now. But oh well. Well anyways it turns out that they spoke English (well at least enough) and one of them wanted to practice so it was all good. But the bus came pretty quickly and they said this was the bus that went to the Duomo and they were going on it too so I got on with them in the rear entrance. I said that I had a buss pass, but it was my Roma buss pass which was invalid here. They said I should go to the bus driver and buy a ticket for around €3 or something like that. It was funny because the guys (especially the one guy who wanted to practice his English) wanted to use his bus vernacular with me. He kept saying "Come si dice scendere, scendere"? (How do you say exit, exit?) and as soon as I heard him say scendere I said "exit" and he knew. He wanted to say ticket but I kept saying il biglietto, which is the ticket in Italian, and he just nodded yes. And the other guy was calling the guy who wanted to practice his English "estupido" and giving him a hard time, which was kinda funny. It turned out my exit was two exits away so I wasn't going to go to the front of the crowded bus to buy a ticket. In Italy there are random searches of all passengers to see if they have tickets and if you don't you get fined €50. The bus driver isn't responsible for you getting a ticket and I even saw signs saying please do not talk to the bus driver. When it was my exit I got off, thanked the guys, and went in the general direction they pointed me to shortly before I exited. To be continued (very soon)...