The Night Train

Liebe Familie, Mittwoch 8 Oktober 2008
Whew! It's been crazy these past two days. I got up very early after staying up very late completing homework on Monday night, so Tuesday was a little painful. However, everything seemed to go well, my presentation in class, staying awake and paying attention to class, not keeling over throughout the day, etc. After my last class I went home and packed while watching the last session of General Conference. It was so good, but it definitely didn't feel like 2 hours, it went by so fast!

I left for the train station, and then we were introduced to sleeping cars for the first time...Wow. A little bit of a squeeze, but it was really fun hanging out in there before bedtime. Every time we stopped into a station I woke up, because I'd move a bit. It was one of the most terrible nights I have ever experienced. Waking up for real at 5:30 for breakfast hurt a lot. We got ready in that teeny little space and arrived in Firenze at 6:20 in the morning. We wandered around the city for an hour trying to find our hotel, then dropped off our luggage. I explored a bit, finding the San Marco Church, as well as a big one I forget the name of at the moment, that was Renaissance and really gaudy. Oh, it's the Duomo, and has a cool bell tower.

We met up with the tour guide and wandered around the city, seeing all of the cool stuff and learning all about it. Afterwards we went shopping in the markets, and it was so sunny and pretty! Absolutely fabulous.

We checked into our hotel, which ended up not having enough space for us even though we had made reservations, so they had to call around until they found a hotel that could fit us and we all walked there. Throwing our stuff down I immediately went out on a trek with some friends to see the Duomo and then find Vivoli, the supposed name of the best gelato in all of Florence. The Duomo's line was too long, we would have run out of time, so after waiting a while we left, and then we went hunting for Vivoli. We wandered around until we were out of time, and then ran over to meet at the Uffizi. The Uffizi is said to be second only to the Louvre. Well, after hearing that I was terribly disappointed. The student price was €14, and we were not allowed to take photos. They only had their information about the art in Italian except for the really famous pieces of those of Botticelli and Da Vinci. It was cool to see those well-known and studied pieces, but the high expectations I had for it were not fulfilled.

I started to feel pretty negative about Florence, and Italy in general, until I realized that the reason I was so depressed about being here was the prices. Once I realized that I relaxed a bit, and will see the David tomorrow, even though I wasn't going to because of the price, and I will also climb the Duomo, even though the price was dissuading me. So after the museum with my new-found attitude, I found a cheap-ish pizza with a wood fired oven. I split it with a friend, so it was only €3 and it was so good! I still haven't had gelato yet, which is kind of depressing, but I will definitely be remedying that tomorrow. I just want to eat the famous stuff though....

After dinner we ran off to see the David, but it was already closed.

Completely beat we limped back to the hotel and collapsed there to rest our poor little lower appendages. So yeah. If I run out of money I'll just take some out of the ATM, even if the exchange rate is not so good at the moment.

So yeah, Italy has greatly improved, even if they do try to suck as much money out of you as possible, so I cannot wait to go to Venice tomorrow night!