Yeah, so when there's no free internet, the blogging kinda falls off a cliff. But I'm gonna try to catch up while I'm here in Amsterdam. Since the last post, I've been to Florence, Rome, Athens, Mykonos, Crete, Budapest and Vienna. It's been really amazing, so much so that I haven't really gotten a chance to sit in front of a computer and write. But that all changes with the combination of a wait for check-in, rain outside, and free internet. Woo!
Ok, so Florence. There are three things I will remember about Florence (other than the things you can find in art books). Well, four, but the last was just an odd and frankly somewhat scary story. The first is walking around the first night with these two random journalism students from the hostel. My companions were indeed memorably dull, but the real memory is walking coming up on the Duomo surrounded by a HUGE piazza (or plaza - should I use English here? It just seems weird to convert) that had at the time all of maybe 20 people in it. Buildings with entire piazzas to themselves are very imposing, but so much more so at night. During the day, there are tons of people, both tourists with hats and cameras and locals running for espresso, and among the hustle, it's very easy to be only marginally impressed. But seeing it all at night, with the white marble reflecting the little light there is, and the emptiness illuminating the sheer enormity of the plaza, well, wow. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, as I didn't even expect to be sightseeing then, but now I will make sure to see sights at night more often.
The second memorable bit occurred in this open square that I can't remember the name of, with tons of statues, including The Rape of the Sabine Women. At night, I saw college-age people lounging around, leaning against the statues and smoking. By day, tired tourists took their break on and around them. Locals pass them on their way to works every day. These statues are just a part of the actual city, and they have become part of the banality of human existence. I mean, of course they have, they're just sitting there, so that's what happens, but it blows my mind. Someone (a Brit, I think) said to me recently about NY that it was amazing to go to the top of the Empire State Building and just see buildings packed in until the horizon. I suppose that compares to the feeling I had in Florence, with me on the other side thinking that's just normal, but wow.
And the last of the good memories from Florence is my hostel, Ostello Archi Rossi. My only regret about it is that I had it early enough to be disappointed by every other hostel I'll go to. This one I'll also add pics for when I get them onto my laptop next week. Ok, here's goes: Frescoes everywhere on the walls. Free hot breakfast with an additional buffet from 7-8. Free walking tours every day. Cheap and good restaurant fro dinner. Courtyard where everyone gathered and to eat and drink the cheap wine and beer at the desk, not to mention other snacks. Good laundry machines. Best beds so far. Messages written all over the otherwise white walls walls. Just the best hostel ever. Most impressive was that it seemed everything was really geared toward making sure the travelers all spent time hanging out in the hostel, which is hard to make happen without a bar. Oh, and later I heard another "best hostel ever" story about another Florence hostel, and that makes me wonder if they just make the hostels there great because people don't stop for more than a couple days otherwise. I mean if you're an art history student, it's an amazing place. But beyond that, there just isn't all that much to do.
It was the best hostel imaginable except of course, for the fourth thing, a crazy Taiwanese chick, who was maybe the weirdest person I've ever met, and definitely the weirdest outside of MIT. One part (but definitely not all) of the weirdness was that she aggresively propositioned me within literally ten minutes of having met me. After a while, I was on the top bunk, trying to go to sleep, and she stood next to me saying things like "I'm so horny." I was a little frightened to actually sleep at this point, and I waited most of an hour for her to do so first.
Oh, and I forgot to mention before that I stopped by Pisa for two hours between the airport and the bus. Everyone's right, you don't need more. I got the holding up the tower pic, and that was that. The church is beautiful, and I hadn't yet seen all that many, so there are lots of crappy no flash pics. And I made friends with a gay couple from Tampa, who I may well end up meeting up with. Hard to resist an offer of a "refreshing drink by our pool" in their new house.
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