So my last post left you off with me heading back to Florence for my last few days in Italy. It's two trains to get to Florence, I had to transfer in Bologna. It's an easy transfer as I didn't have to switch binarios (platforms) when getting off the train. I just wait 45 minutes on the binario I got off on...or so I thought.
As I was waiting on binario 6 I looked up at the screen that tells you your train arrival; it said my train was arriving on binario 4 ten minutes early. That's strange, I thought. So I pulled out my ticket, compared my train number and time. My train wasn't early it was actually arriving 10 minutes early, it was arriving at it's scheduled time...guess I read it wrong.
I looked around at the other platforms and saw that I had to go one track over and I needed to hurry because I still needed to go to the toilet and with confusing the arrival time I needed to move fast.
I'm not a fan of using public toilets in Europe, mostly because you have to squat and they are not always super clean. The ones on the train however, wouldn't be much better and would most likely be out of toilet paper; plus, I would have to leave my bag on my seat so I am not keen on doing so I decided to take my chances with the ones at the station. To my delight this was probably the cleanest public toilet I have ever been to. You pay 1 euro, this plastic partition opens and you walk into a prestine shiny bathroom with toilets that have seats. Sweet!!! When you leave, you push a button and the partition opens up and lets you out.
With an empty and happy bladder I made my way to binario 4.
As I was waiting for the train to arrive something, for some reason told me to check my ticket again. Everything seemed right but I still thought the binario change was weird. I then looked at the date. SHIT!!! I was looking at my return ticket!!! Now I had to find a screen and recheck the proper train number and time and get to the correct binario. It was number 6, ten minutes after the arrival of this one which was heading back to Termoli!!! That would've sucked big time.
I made it back to binario 6 with time to spare and headed in the right direction to Florence.
We didn't do much. We wandered around the city, went shopping, got a make over, went to our favourite restaurant for lunch. I met up with my old landlord for coffee which was great. We spent a lot of time in the apartment, making cocktails, drinking wine, playing cards, cooking and just talking and catching up.
My last night Justin met up with us again and we went for drinks. It was nice to have some send of drinks with them. I was a little heart broken to leave so having them celebrate my time there was really awesome.
The next day (all of us hungover) both Caroline and Justin saw me off at the train station. I hate goodbyes especially when the next visit is indefinite and it meant so much to me that they both came. I didnt cry...well i didnt cry there...i shed a few tears on the train with my fingers crossed to return in September.
The next day my parents and I were on the road just after 7am. It took us three and a half hours to drive to Rome to the airport - heaps easier and faster then the train we took from there to Termoli.
By the time our plane took off at 3:30pm we had already been in transit for almost 9 hours. I would like to say it was an uneventful flight but it seemed as though our section of the plane had the most action happening.
First there was this group of men that got on, acting like they were on spring break. They started singing at the top of their lungs and the flight attendants just kept walking by not even asking them to to stop disturbing others on the plane. |I yelled "be quiet" which only caused them to sing even louder, and then another girl yelled "can you please stop that." Finally the flight attendants came over and spoke to them for about 10 minutes.
About 7 hours into our 9 our flight an older gentleman was putting up a stink, he was really mad and causing a disturbance. "Dad what's he saying?" I asked as it was in Italian. "He wants the guy sleeping in front of him to put his seat up because he is uncomfortable." The flight attendant had to come over and tell him - though in Italian I could tell what was being said - that it wasn't possible for her to ask the man sleeping to put his chair up. The man was arguing back, she kept repeating herself. Then the monk - yes thats right - sitting beside the man got involved. It was quite entertaining and not just for me but for everyone. Seven hours into a flight is when people start standing and walking around to stretch there legs so everyone was standing and leaning in to the situation to get a better idea of what was going on. After about 10 minutes the man gave up and angrily sat on the arm of his isle seat.
An hour later the little boy in front of us who was about 3 or 4 years old started screaming for 20 minutes. It was a long flight and he did awesome but hard on the ears after being confined to a plane for long hours.
By the time we got home it was 11:30pm which was actually 5:30am for us...we were exhausted and a traffic jam on the highway didn't help us getting home any quicker. I was the first one in bed...i walked in the door and literally collapsed on my bed. I love my bed.
I miss Italy, I really do. I had such an amazing time...it was probably one of my best trips, and I really needed it. I know I came home to clear my head but sometimes I need a little push to remember where my heart is. I have settled a bit so this trip reminded me of what I want to be doing which is traveling and teaching and I am so grateful to be reminded how important teaching is to me.
Well, thats it for now. We have been home almost two weeks, the weather is good and we have started our garden which is exciting. Hopefully I will have some adventures in the summer to write about, if not you will just have to wait till my next adventure hopefully to come sooner than later.
Ciao
- My Beautiful Life -
As I was waiting on binario 6 I looked up at the screen that tells you your train arrival; it said my train was arriving on binario 4 ten minutes early. That's strange, I thought. So I pulled out my ticket, compared my train number and time. My train wasn't early it was actually arriving 10 minutes early, it was arriving at it's scheduled time...guess I read it wrong.
I looked around at the other platforms and saw that I had to go one track over and I needed to hurry because I still needed to go to the toilet and with confusing the arrival time I needed to move fast.
I'm not a fan of using public toilets in Europe, mostly because you have to squat and they are not always super clean. The ones on the train however, wouldn't be much better and would most likely be out of toilet paper; plus, I would have to leave my bag on my seat so I am not keen on doing so I decided to take my chances with the ones at the station. To my delight this was probably the cleanest public toilet I have ever been to. You pay 1 euro, this plastic partition opens and you walk into a prestine shiny bathroom with toilets that have seats. Sweet!!! When you leave, you push a button and the partition opens up and lets you out.
With an empty and happy bladder I made my way to binario 4.
As I was waiting for the train to arrive something, for some reason told me to check my ticket again. Everything seemed right but I still thought the binario change was weird. I then looked at the date. SHIT!!! I was looking at my return ticket!!! Now I had to find a screen and recheck the proper train number and time and get to the correct binario. It was number 6, ten minutes after the arrival of this one which was heading back to Termoli!!! That would've sucked big time.
I made it back to binario 6 with time to spare and headed in the right direction to Florence.
We didn't do much. We wandered around the city, went shopping, got a make over, went to our favourite restaurant for lunch. I met up with my old landlord for coffee which was great. We spent a lot of time in the apartment, making cocktails, drinking wine, playing cards, cooking and just talking and catching up.
My last night Justin met up with us again and we went for drinks. It was nice to have some send of drinks with them. I was a little heart broken to leave so having them celebrate my time there was really awesome.
The next day (all of us hungover) both Caroline and Justin saw me off at the train station. I hate goodbyes especially when the next visit is indefinite and it meant so much to me that they both came. I didnt cry...well i didnt cry there...i shed a few tears on the train with my fingers crossed to return in September.
The next day my parents and I were on the road just after 7am. It took us three and a half hours to drive to Rome to the airport - heaps easier and faster then the train we took from there to Termoli.
By the time our plane took off at 3:30pm we had already been in transit for almost 9 hours. I would like to say it was an uneventful flight but it seemed as though our section of the plane had the most action happening.
First there was this group of men that got on, acting like they were on spring break. They started singing at the top of their lungs and the flight attendants just kept walking by not even asking them to to stop disturbing others on the plane. |I yelled "be quiet" which only caused them to sing even louder, and then another girl yelled "can you please stop that." Finally the flight attendants came over and spoke to them for about 10 minutes.
About 7 hours into our 9 our flight an older gentleman was putting up a stink, he was really mad and causing a disturbance. "Dad what's he saying?" I asked as it was in Italian. "He wants the guy sleeping in front of him to put his seat up because he is uncomfortable." The flight attendant had to come over and tell him - though in Italian I could tell what was being said - that it wasn't possible for her to ask the man sleeping to put his chair up. The man was arguing back, she kept repeating herself. Then the monk - yes thats right - sitting beside the man got involved. It was quite entertaining and not just for me but for everyone. Seven hours into a flight is when people start standing and walking around to stretch there legs so everyone was standing and leaning in to the situation to get a better idea of what was going on. After about 10 minutes the man gave up and angrily sat on the arm of his isle seat.
An hour later the little boy in front of us who was about 3 or 4 years old started screaming for 20 minutes. It was a long flight and he did awesome but hard on the ears after being confined to a plane for long hours.
By the time we got home it was 11:30pm which was actually 5:30am for us...we were exhausted and a traffic jam on the highway didn't help us getting home any quicker. I was the first one in bed...i walked in the door and literally collapsed on my bed. I love my bed.
I miss Italy, I really do. I had such an amazing time...it was probably one of my best trips, and I really needed it. I know I came home to clear my head but sometimes I need a little push to remember where my heart is. I have settled a bit so this trip reminded me of what I want to be doing which is traveling and teaching and I am so grateful to be reminded how important teaching is to me.
Well, thats it for now. We have been home almost two weeks, the weather is good and we have started our garden which is exciting. Hopefully I will have some adventures in the summer to write about, if not you will just have to wait till my next adventure hopefully to come sooner than later.
Ciao
- My Beautiful Life -
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