Florence again + Berlan.

On Saturday, I re-visited Florence with uni.

Walking around a foreign city with three friends is actually quite a fun experience. Despite my tone of surprise, I wasn't surprised, if that makes sense.

When I began writing this post, I was on about 2 hours of sleep, so pardon any ridiculousness that I wrote/write. Or don't. I really couldn't care less.

I think, out of all the Italian cities, Florence is the one I like the most. If you want to go to touristy places, you can do so. If you choose not to, you can also just wander the streets for a few hours, and find a myriad of interesting things to see/do/not do.

After getting "lost" and catching the later train than everyone else, us four (being Louise, Jamie, Lucy, and surprisingly, I) got back to the hotel about half an hour after everyone else.

I headed to bed, and couldn't sleep for what I think was three hours. Then had really stoppy starty sleep.

The next morning (being yesterday morning), I thought it was because of the heat and the early sleep time/wake time. In hindsight, I think it may have been me thinking about things and not being able to sleep my brain.

Same thing happened this morning, but you don't really care about that.

Anyway, back to yesterday.

We broke into a concentration camp in Fossoli (as one does), then continued bussing our way to Milano.

Milano was fairly boring, especially as I had been there before, but having a guided tour by the architect of the memorial he was building at the train station was excellent. It would have been cool even if I wasn't doing this unit, because we gained an insight into his thinking and planning processes.

After dinner, we jetted off to Berlin, from whence I am slightly tiredly typing this.

It's a lovely city, from what I've seen so far, and I'm looking forward to exploring it further.

Word of the Day: Pardon

Of idiocy and beauty in Florence, and travelling with uni.

This morning, I did something that was simultaneously fun and ridiculously stupid in Florence.

In the words of Boromir, it was folly.

I was going to have a nice quiet one, visiting the statue of David, and not visit the Duomo, because I figured it would be much the same as every other Duomo. Also, I had slept about four hours because the Italian people partake in traditional car honking celebrations after their team wins a football match.

Of course, I ended up at the Duomo, and not seeing David.

Why?

The line for David was just not moving. Because I am an ultra-patient person, I left after 10 minutes of queue inaction.

I went to the Duomo, expecting maybe just to walk around inside, take a few good photos of stained glass and whatnot, and go home.

What I ended up doing was scaling a bazillion stairs, not knowing where it would stop, because I had no idea what people generally did at that place.

What people generally did was climb to the top of the place. By climbing the aforementioned one zillion steps.

The view at the top, however, made the trip almost worth it.

(I'll upload a pic a bit later maybe)

Truly breathtaking.

The way down wasn't as bad as expected either.

So after that, long story short, I more or less stumbled towards Prato and uni people.

So we haven't done much so far, except for wandering around Prato. The two people I was wandering with, Jamie (Melbourne High old boy - saw it from a mile away - seriously) and Louise, were quite swell, and the wandering was fairly good bonding time. Met a few more cool people at dinner, which was all good, and I look forward to doing more of the same over the next few days. Off to a good start already. Not that I expected anything less.

Word of the Day: Folly

Thank-you, KIG.

So of course, my last train ride (I think/hope) of this journey is delayed by an hour-and-a-half or something. And, of course, no announcements in English to tell me, or any non-Italian speakers (because I’m not selfish and all that) what’s going on. Thankfully, a nice girl who spoke both Italian and English fairly well (well, I assume she spoke Italian fluently – I’d obviously have no idea) kept me up to date and stuff. Thank-you, kindly Italian girl, even though you’ll probably never read this. Without you, I might still be stuck on Platform 10 or whatever it was, trying to figure out how to say “I don’t know what the hell’s going on, please help” in Italian.  

While on said train, I watched/listened to the football with a whole trainload of Italians (obviously). Absolutely hilarious and enlightening experience (the only positive to come out of the whole delay). From 20 years old to 80, the people were equally passionate, crowding around the few streaming iPads, exalting in the two goals at staggered intervals (one of the streams were about 2 minutes behind the other). They were absolutely loving it, especially the aforementioned kind Italian girl, who kept calling someone and asking for the score. Made me think that the only reason they were upset at the delayed train was because they were missing out on the game.

One of those weird, impromptu, interesting, money-can't-buy experiences. Some of the best experiences. I love them. More so when they happen not because of a delayed train.

Now, because Italy's thrashed Germany at the Euros, they are partaking in their traditional post-football-match-victory celebration, which sounds suspiciously like the honking of car horns. This is at midnight. About three hours after the victory. And it seems to get louder and louder.

Anyway, tomorrow afternoon, I'll join up with uni. On the one hand, I'm very, very relieved to have someone else look after the planning and talking and stuff. I'm so far over all that it's not even funny. On the other hand, I'll have to meet new people.

Actually, that's quite good. What am I even talking about?

Also, I wish Germany would've won. I like Germany. Most in-depth football commentary ever.

Word of the Day: Honking