Tuscany, take two, proved far more successful. We bought tickets the day beforehand to ensure that they wouldn't be sold out like the weekend before so getting on a train was no problem. I cannot say the same for finding our seats. You see Italy loves to complicate things. Booking one person per seat would be far too easy, why not book three people to one seat? Yep, I arrived at my seat to find a person in my seat. When I pointed it out, I was surprised to find he was from Canada and spoke English. Then the woman across the way said that she was also assigned that seat. The fact that she spoke English and was visiting from Alabama with her husband was even harder to believe. Now I don't want to sound skeptical, but I found it a bit curious that three English speaking people were all assigned the same seat by the Italian train transportation system. It may have passed through my thoughts a time or two that the Northern Italians were totally screwing us over, but who am I to say? I mean these Northern Italians haven't given me any reason not to trust them, right? Their mean glares and snubs have been nothing but endearing. I'll just call it a predestine meeting between native English speakers. Yeah, that sounds a lot less cynical.
When we couldn't find anyone to sort the problem out we decided to sit across the way and hoped no one would come looking for those seats. I was planning on playing dumb if they asked me to move which would be easy to pull off considering I speak no Italian. It actually turned out to be a fun ride chatting with these people. The Canadian boy was my age and traveling with two other friends while the Alabama couple were middle-aged. We shared stories about our visits in Italy and learned that the Canadian and his friends were backpacking throughout Europe. I was kind of jealous. I wish I had time to do that. In fact, I would have liked to join their group. It was refreshing to see a guy that had a waist wider than that of a twelve year old and wasn't wearing purple or some other hideously colored pair of skinny jeans. Oh, did I mention that young guys here wear skinny jeans? Trust me, it's not a pretty sight. I am not even a big fan of skinny jeans on women let alone on men. I hope this isn't a trend that catches on in the States or I might just have to start batting for the other team if you know what I mean. It's truly just that disturbing. Anyway, before I got fashion side-tracked, I was sad to part ways with our short-lived English speaking friends.
Once we got to Florence we immediately started to wonder the streets. It was easy to see that it was a big tourist town from all of the people roaming the small streets. I thought about mooing in honor of Dad due to the herds of people, but quickly realized that that joke would probably be lost on the Italians. Sorry Dad, cattle calling will just have to wait until I join you back at home. After walking about and doing some shopping, we stopped at a small cafe. Katie and I managed to polish off each our own Neopolian pizza and a bottle of wine. I could use the excuse that they don't sell single slices of pizza, but hell, I'm not ashamed. It was damn good pizza, and these toothpick Italian girls can go to hell. Actually some of these Italain girls could do with some curves especially in the behind area. Apparently they've never heard of Sir-Mix-A lot's Baby Got Back that's for damn sure. After eating we managed to make our way to the famous Florence Bridge where we got some beautiful photos.
We also discovered a car rally going on. The annual 1000 Mil Italian Road Rally was running through Florence that day so we got to see a lot of amazing cars. We're talking BMWs, Mazaratis, Porshes, and Ferraris--both new and old. It was quite the site, but maybe not for some of my Italian students. Only just this week while teaching a lesson on proper nouns, I was shocked to find out that one of my student's father owns a Ferrari. Firing back with "Oh yeah, I own a 2001 Ford Escort!" would have been just too pitiful so I slowly closed my mouth and nodded like it was no big deal.
Katie also had her own shock. While walking the streets of Florence, we ran into a few character statues--you know those creepy people that pretend to be statues or other characters kind of like mimes. There was one dressed as DiVinci and another one that was Columbus. Well, one was painted all white like a cupid statue complete with bow and arrow. When Katie went to toss some change in its bucket, it quickly came to life and latched onto her. Katie played along giving it a hug while I snapped a picture, but the situation quickly went from PG to PG13 as Cupid tangled his hands in her hair and planted a kiss on her cheek. If that wasn't enough, Cupid had plans to swiftly make it to first base as he tried forcefully to steal a full on kiss to her lips. At that point, Katie was trying desperately to pull away while laughing her ass off. I managed to snap four shots of the whole sordid ordeal between my own hysterical bouts of laughter, and only then did Katie finally free herself from the promiscuous Cupid. The fact that we were not even sure if it was a man or woman under all the paint made it even funnier--or disturbing depending on how you look at it.
Over all, it's safe to say that our trip to Florence, Tuscany was eventful to say the least. I'm glad we were finally able to make it. The pizza and wine alone was well worth the second try.
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