Monday morning we went to the train station to catch our train to Florence. It was my first time on a train, so I was actually pretty excited. Come to find out, it’s really not that exciting of a thing. It’s kind of like a bus but faster, and the seats suck. They’re the most uncomfortable transportation seats I’ve ever sat in. I think it’s because I’m shorter than average and the pillow is fixed to the top of the seat, so it pushes my head down. But oh well, I have to try things once…or three times on this trip, actually. Oh well. When we got to Florence, we walked from the train station to our hotel, or…rather, what we thought was our hotel. When we got there we were told that there was
not room for us because Penn State was still there on their study abroad trip. So we got moved over to their sister hotel…I think it must have been the red-headed step sister hotel. It was pretty gross. The walls in the room were bright yellow, with pieces of plaster missing and brick sticking through. We couldn’t figure out if the exposed brick was decoration or lack of repair…we decided on decoration just to comfort ourselves. We had three single column beds all against one long headboard, on small bed side table, a wardrobe, and a desk. Our bathroom was all blue and laid out in a line. The shower was a single stall on one end, and the whole bathroom was the same width as the shower. The toilet and foot bath were on the wall across from the door, and the sink and mirror (only mirror in the room!) were on the wall across from the shower. We had to shuffle through the bathroom. Also, the only outlet was in the bathroom, and the TV didn’t work…even if it’s in Italian a little TV is good sometimes. It was such a down grade from our hotel in Rome.
But it was a bed and a shower (sort of) so it’s better than nothing. We took some time to freshen up, and then met our Florence tour guide, Tanya. She just walked us through Florence to get an idea of the town and become oriented with the common areas and routes. We did a circle through the Piazza de Republica (pretty much a town square), and through popular side and main streets. She also gave us suggestions for food and dessert, which proved to be a successful thing with Antionella (the restaurant she suggested in Rome was amazing!). It was a pretty lax day over all. Most of the group went over to the other hotel (the one we were originally supposed to stay in)
because they were allowing us to use their internet for free. My computer was broken, so I stayed behind and just hung around the hotel. The hotel that we were actually staying at had one kiosk that we could use for an hour so I used that t
o check email and work on some blogging. I basically just relaxed around the hotel. . .took a shower, did some reading, got some hot chocolate…which by the way, was some of the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had in my life, even though the guy had apologized for the quality because it’s made in the morning and I got it at night. It was amazing though. I know it sounds boring, but it really was great to have some time by myself to just relax.
Monday morning we went to the train station to catch our train to Florence. It was my first time on a train, so I was actually pretty excited. Come to find out, it’s really not that exciting of a thing. It’s kind of like a bus but faster, and the seats suck. They’re the most uncomfortable transportation seats I’ve ever sat in. I think it’s because I’m shorter than average and the pillow is fixed to the top of the seat, so it pushes my head down. But oh well, I have to try things once…or three times on this trip, actually. Oh well. When we got to Florence, we walked from the train station to our hotel, or…rather, what we thought was our hotel. When we got there we were told that there was
But it was a bed and a shower (sort of) so it’s better than nothing. We took some time to freshen up, and then met our Florence tour guide, Tanya. She just walked us through Florence to get an idea of the town and become oriented with the common areas and routes. We did a circle through the Piazza de Republica (pretty much a town square), and through popular side and main streets. She also gave us suggestions for food and dessert, which proved to be a successful thing with Antionella (the restaurant she suggested in Rome was amazing!). It was a pretty lax day over all. Most of the group went over to the other hotel (the one we were originally supposed to stay in) 
because they were allowing us to use their internet for free. My computer was broken, so I stayed behind and just hung around the hotel. The hotel that we were actually staying at had one kiosk that we could use for an hour so I used that t
o check email and work on some blogging. I basically just relaxed around the hotel. . .took a shower, did some reading, got some hot chocolate…which by the way, was some of the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had in my life, even though the guy had apologized for the quality because it’s made in the morning and I got it at night. It was amazing though. I know it sounds boring, but it really was great to have some time by myself to just relax.
No comments:
Post a Comment