We made it to Florence Italy!
Here are some pics from our travel day to Florence:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9547617@N02/sets/72157608204563185/
Hey everyone! It has been quite the journey so far, but we finally have gotten our feet on the ground in Florence and it is wonderful. We left Dublin at about 5:30pm and arrived in Bergamo at about 9pm or so. We had to get a taxi which costed us a cool €25 which sucks since we drove just 5km. When we walked up to the taxi we startled him because he was watching TV on a little handheld thing and we told him that we wanted to go the Hotel Maxim. He looked puzzled then cracked a grin and said “Ohh, Hotel Maxeeeeem”. Yes, the Hotel Maxeeem. Just in two days we have gotten much better at pronouncing stuff but I am sure we are butchering everything we say still. Anyway, we got in the taxi, and much to our dismay, he mounted the handheld TV to the dashboard and drove us to the Hotel Maxeeeem through tight roadways and fast freeways all while watching Italian TV, it was interesting. We arrived at the hotel and gladly passed out.
The next day we found our way to a bus that we got directions to the day before. We had to walk to this plaza or piazza (there a ton of piazzas, it’s really cool) and buy a bus ticket in advance. We walked past the bus stop at first then made our way back and eventually found it. We had to wait about 30 minutes for the bus, but was actually really fun to people watch. The stop was right by a church and at one point a marching band came out of nowhere leading a procession of people and they walked in the church and the band stopped playing, we have no idea what it was about. Then about 10 minutes later an old man rode up on a bike and started talking to us in Italian. We had no idea what he was saying, and we tried to say in English we don’t know what he was saying. He at one point mentioned La Banda, so we pointed to the church and smiled, he then rode away.
The bus eventually showed up. This bus ride started normal…until we reached The Stop. We came to one random stop and there was literally 40 women standing waiting for the bus. This bus is just like any city bus we see cruising around the states. All of the sudden I was bumping and grinding with a whole lot of 45 year old Italian ladies that were smelling kinda ripe. We had no idea where we were going, had no idea how to stop the bus at the stop we wanted, and no idea how to even comprehend the situation at hand. Thankfully, two super nice ladies talked to us and helped us figure out our stop and told us when to get off at the Bergamo train station.
We took a train from Bergamo to Milan (Milano), then Milan to Florence (Firenze). Sunday is not the best travel day because a lot of things don’t run on the normal schedule and places are closed but we were lucky to find a tourist office open in the stazione. We got hooked up with the Hotel Lombardi and put our stuff down. From there we asked the front desk where to eat and he told us to go somewhere, but we forgot the name as we walked so we found another random ristorante and had some pizza, spaghetti, vino, cafe, gelato, and cheese cake with berries. We were tired and hungry so we kinda went all out.
While we were sitting at the table the place mat had an ad for apartments for rent. That was convenient seeing how we were planning to find an apartment all day today but instead one came to us as we were eating dinner. So fast forward to this morning and we went back to the ristorante and found a guy named Jean (kinda pronounced John, you know like Puff Big Daddy J). He had a tiny apartementi available and was going to give it to us for 60 euro a night, which is fantastic because this is technically still their high season and it’s a €40 a night discount.
So we are now going to take some pics and spend some time wandering until the apartementi is ready, and we will get set up. We are super glad to be in Florence and can’t wait to check out the rest of this amazing country.
And two side notes, one for T Dizzle, I will email you specifically when I get to take some pictures of Rome, and for J Dizzle, the Guiness was remarkable in Dublin, and it does take a while to get your Guiness, they pull the pint about 3 quarters of the way, let the foam go down for a few minutes, then they fill it up and over flow it. I didn’t try the quarter thing because I was too busy drinking the delicious brew. But to tell you the truth, Jill and I found a much better Irish brewery that has one incredible stout.
We love everyone, and can’t wait to see you guys. Thanks for the continuous support and we love reading your comments. Ciao!
<3 Joey and Jill
October 20th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Hello you two…it sounds like you are having quite an adventure. Please post pictures for the apartementi - I can’t wait to see what it’s like. Glad to hear that you are enjoying the food and beer. Since you are in Italy now, we would hope to hear that you are trying some of the wines. Uncle Peter will expect at least some kind of report on what you think about Italian wines. Personally, I don’t particularly care for Italian wines, but Peter and Jeff certainly do. Grandma Rich said she will be going over to Cynthia’s next Saturday (10/27) to check out all of your posts, so be sure and give a shout out to G’ma Rich. Love you both. Thinking of you always!
October 21st, 2008 at 2:33 am
Hey, don’t mail anything from Italy, We had friends that lived there for 4 years and I might get a letter 1 year after it was mailed. They said Italy has the worst postal system possible. I sent them thirty letters and they only recieved about 12. It might be a good idea not to mail anything, no telling when or if it will get here. I love your blogs and pictures, there’re the highlite of my day, thanks. Love you both, have all the fun you can! Uncle Ron & Patty
October 21st, 2008 at 10:28 am
wad up sizzlas,
Unfortunately I mailed you 590 dollars to help with the trip…I used Jeff’s credit card to produce a money order, so no skin off my back jajaja (<–That’s how they spell hahaha in those type of third world countries). But anyways you guys keep on having tons of fun which is a trip requirement so don’t stop until you’ve been to the shindigg. It blew my mind away though that one of you bought boots in another country when they could’ve been bought here in the US, but whatever they probably only got llama fur to work with over there so they were probably pretty custo-ed out. Hope all is well, take a picture of the leaning tower of pizza for me. Peace, USA!