Andrew's Post-College Eurotrip

Boy is our hotel room small. When we woke up around 8:30am, the lights wouldn’t turn on. I think there might have been a “lights out” policy or something because as we were packing up, our lights magically turned on right around 9am. We originally only booked one night because the price for Monday night was cheap but the Tuesday and Wednesday prices were significantly higher. We were planning to try to barter for better prices but Kristine had been so turned off by the (interestingly named) "Pension Miami" hotel's seedy location the previous night that we decided to find an internet café and find a different hotel. It was a minimum 50 euro cents for the internet but the kicker was that for that price, only one of us was allowed to use the internet, so Kristine searched while I had to sit at the entrance which was pretty ridiculous. She booked a place that wasn’t too far away, but check in wasn’t until 12 and there was no front desk to even let us in before that so we had a little over an hour to kill. We made our way to the Arc de Triomf (I guess every city has one) and walked around the Park de la Ciutadella surrounded by government buildings and even the Barcelona zoo. Then we went back and grabbed our bags before heading to our new hotel which is more like a home and is very charming. There is a full kitchen and we have a room with a small balcony that gives us a great view. We met a girl from France and a guy from Korea that were cooking as we dropped off our things. By this time we were starving and went to Tapa Tapa and had some great and cheap Tapas. Tapas are basically like appetizers that are mostly 3-6 euros, so you can get a couple for lunch or dinner. I had a delicious little salad and some kebabs made of some kind of meat that I couldn’t determine.

Afterward, we headed to the tour bus stop and bought a two day pass that will take us all around to the many sites of Barcelona. Its actually run by the same company as the buses I took and London and I luckily found my receipts from London and saved a few euros off my ticket, but they wouldn't give Kristine the discount. First stop was Parc Guell which we thought would be a quick half hour stop. Instead, the bus dropped us off a few blocks from the entrance to the park and the walk to the park was very steep. The park is a failed housing development designed by Antonio Gaudi and his whimsical architecture could be seen throughout the park. The park is absolutely enormous and offers fantastic views of Barcelona since it is on one of the city’s highest hills. At one point we stopped to listen to an authentic little band and after watching a few people give them change, we watched one of the band members plant a 20 euro bill among the pile of change. We both found this quite entertaining and wondered whether this subtle hint really made people give more money.

After another few minutes of an uphill hike we were sitting in a small plaza lined with souvenir vendors listening to another band when we saw a nearby hill with a few people on it. Much to Kristine’s chagrin, we climbed up to the top of this little peak “Tres Cruces” (for the three stone crosses at the peak) for a great panorama of the city. It was pretty steep and were a bit surprised that there were no fences at the peak. We laughed at the thought of how such a spot back home would be surrounded by heavy duty fences to prevent inevitable lawsuits. After spending a few hours more than the planned half hour at Park Guell, we headed back down to the bus stop only to find an enormous line to get back on the tour bus. The line looked to be at least an hour long and I noticed that the previous stop on the route was only about 5 blocks away, so we walked it in about 15 minutes to catch the bus without any line (score!). We rode the bus and listened to the narrative for most of the rest of the blue route loop of the bus tour. We passed by the Barcelona soccer stadium, the largest stadium in Europe. Maybe its because Barca won the European cup this past year, but I have seen more people wearing Barca jerseys per hour around here than I saw over a few days elsewhere in Europe. With all of that support, I can't imagine they have any trouble filling the stadium despite its size. It was getting late, otherwise I would have liked to stop at the stadium as there is supposed to be a cool soccer museum and tour of the stadium.

We continued on the bus to Las Ramblas, the main tourist street in Barcelona and from there walked to Cathedral de la Santa Creu. We were a bit iffy on whether to stop there despite Arthur’s recommendations only because we had seen so many churches on our tour and they were all starting to look the same. However, we were happy to have stopped. The gothic architecture of the church was pleasantly unique and there was even a beautiful courtyard with a few fountains and swans. The only disappointing part was that the outside was undergoing renovations. It seems as if every site we visit is under renovations this summer from London to Pisa to Bologna and now Barcelona. Oh well. Kristine had to cover her shoulders at the cathedral but luckily I had a towel in my backpack in case we had time to hit the beach. One funny aspect of the church was that the candles that most churches let you light for a small donation were replaced by little electric candles that automatically lit up when you dropped change in. It wasn’t quite the same. We also saw a poster that announced that the Pope would be there in a few weeks. It was funny because it looked like a poster for a concert and made the Pope look like a hip rock star. Just outside the church was a cool little antique market where I found a few cheap old Spanish coins and Kristine finally found an antique ring that she had been searching for during our whole trip.

We then headed back to Las Ramblas and to the famous La Boqueria, an enormous market with fresh fruit, meat and fish at a variety of little stands. Kristine found a great dried fruit stand, but mostly we just walked around and admired the market. We noticed in Frommer’s that most restaurants didn’t open until 8, so we wandered the market and then Las Ramblas for a while before heading to our restaurant of choice. Since our only map was the free one we were given on the bus tour and it only included the main streets, it took us quite a while to find the restaurant we were looking for only to find that it was closed. We settled on another that yet again took us forever to find and almost caved in to various restaurants along the strip, but Arthur’s description of the restaurant we were searching for sounded so good that we decided to forge on. When we finally found it after asking a cop for directions, we were pleased that we stuck it out and found the restaurant. As we were seated, we walked through the kitchen, which smelled fantastic and looked quite authentic and couldn’t believe that Arthur had classified this as an “Inexpensive” restaurant. Once we sat down and looked at the menu, with the cheapest entre around 30 euros, we realized that it was in fact too good to be true. There was no way we were dropping over 100 bucks on dinner, so I convinced Kristine to walk out and told her that I would follow in 30 seconds. It was a funny experience and we felt a little bad because they had brought our bread out, but we hadn’t eaten any so oh well. At this point, I was a bit fed up with Arthur. I had contemplated it before, but now I was sure that Arthur was paid off by the restaurants and it was nothing more than a book for them to advertise in. While Arthur had certainly told us about some great restaurants, others must have paid to be included in the book and classified as “inexpensive.”

Anyways, we went back to one of the places we had contemplated going to before. When we sat down and saw the prices on the menu, we were again a bit nervous that the 10.95 deal (for paella and two tapas) was too good to be true, as the paella alone was 10 euros and the tapas were around 5 euros apiece. I had a Spanish omelette which was maybe a quarter of an egg with potato inside and I was extremely glad I didn’t pay 5 euros for it. I’m hoping that it was just a small portion because it was part of the special deal-otherwise that is one overpriced omelette. Kristine got a pizza as her main course that was pretty good and I was ecstatic to finally have some paella. My seafood paella had shrimp with the heads and feet still attached which was kind of strange but didn’t bother me much. Kristine, on the other hand, was grossed out, and she didn’t even have to eat them! This was the most full I had been on our entire trip, and for only 10.95 apiece! We topped it off with some sangria, which they kind of screwed us with (7 euros each) but we still had a great and cheap dinner nonetheless. As we walked back up Las Ramblas to turn in for the night, we stopped to watch a variety of street performers, from dancers to one guy who painted himself to look like a statue and sat on a toilet. We also noticed signs hanging from street lamps that detailed some harsh punishments for things like vandalism. The scare tactics seemed to be an effective strategy because restaurants were able to keep chairs out without being tampered with and the strip was mostly spotless. On the way home, we walked through the Placa de Catalunya and admired a beautiful fountain. We got back to our hotel after a long day, admired the view from our balcony, and turned in for the night.

Well I woke up this morning and realized that the huge bites I had everywhere had gone down moderately but more importantly that I hadn’t got any more bites. So, I’m fairly sure that I don’t actually have bedbugs, which is good news. Must have been some pretty sizeable mosquitoes though. We had to pack up our things and put them in the lobby since we’ll be back on the road tonight. Just before we left our room, we took advantage of the (free!) wifi and booked our flights back home. It was tough having to decide between a Thursday morning flight, which was the cheapest but only gave us two days in Barcelona or a Friday night flight that would effectively give us four days in Barcelona, but it would cost an extra $100 and also gave us a 9-hour layover in Dublin. That wasn’t exactly how I planned to spend my first time in Ireland. Eventually we decided on the earlier flight, which would give me a chance to get home in time for my mom’s birthday. With that, however, Kristine promised to wake up early to get the most out of our two days in Barcelona. This was the first time that our last minute planning didn’t work totally in our favor. Arthur recommended buying plane tickets either far in advance or at the last minute for the best deals and since this whole trip was kind of last minute, the flight home was never going to be cheap. For whatever reason, even when I first started planning for this trip, the flights home were about 300 more than the flights there. I have been monitoring the prices every chance I get and they went up by about $100 even when looking a few days before and after the day we wanted to leave. In this case, it was worth the $100 because of the flexibility it offered since so much of the trip was left open, but in the future, I think I would buy the tickets there and back way in advance but leave the rest up in the air to figure out as I go.

Anyways, we hit up the same sandwich shop from yesterday, it was frustrating because I hate repeating but it was literally the only cheap stop we had seen in all of our travels yesterday and the sandwiches filled us up for a good price. Interestingly, this little place has waiters, which struck us as odd since its really no more than a little deli. Its funny how all across Italy, they try to avoid giving you meat at all costs. Either they think that they can substitute mozzarella for meat or they give you one, maybe two thin slices of meat. I can’t wait for a huge Wegman’s sub when I get home. A 14 inch costs about 7.50 and lasts me for about two meals and costs roughly the same or less than these 5 and 6 euro sandwiches that don’t even fill me up. Afterward, we headed to the Palazzo Ducal (Doge’s Palace) on the Piazza San Marco and bought the combination ticket for the Palace and the Museo Civico Correr on the palace’s bottom floor. Immediately I noticed how dead it was inside the museum, similar to the campanile yesterday that had no lines to get to the top even at sunset. I’m not sure whether this is because the attractions are so ridiculously expensive or whether people simply would rather explore the beauty of Venice than be cooped up inside. I suspect it’s a combination of the two. The museum was an interesting narrative on the history of Venice although both Kristine and I are starting to reach our limit on cultural activities. One thing I did like was that in each room there were signs explaining the significance of the room or its contents in a variety of languages. The Doge was the traditional leader of the republic of Venice but was mostly just a figurehead. Nevertheless, the palace was both beautiful and extravagant, with some rooms rivaling the grandeur of Versailles in both size and ornate decoration. One room where the leaders of government once met was said to be the largest room in Europe and had a ceiling beautifully decorated with remarkable detail.

One oddity of the Palace was that it also housed Venice’s jails in the same building where the Doge lived. The jails might take the cake as the smelliest place in an already fairly smelly continent. I think that the smell came from the frequent floods in Venice leaving behind enough moisture for mold and mildew to take hold since they were on the ground floor. We were able to walk across the so-called Bridge of Sighs, named because it connected the judicial offices where prisoners were sentenced to the jails themselves and the prisoners were said to sigh as they walked across the bridge and glimpsed their last view of Venice out of the small windows on the bridge before being locked up. After our tour, we were back on the Piazza San Marco and walked around the shops for a bit. Many of the shops have Murano glass, which I had heard of but did not realize that Murano was an island that was just off the main islands of Venice. Arthur recommended a day trip to the islands of Murano and Burano if we had a third day in Venice which we will regrettably not have time for. One shop even had glass handblown to resemble balloon animals which was a clever idea but cost upwards of a few thousand euros. Needless to say, the shops around San Marco were way out of our price range to actually buy anything from. Kristine grabbed a gelato and we sat down on the steps as close as possible to a restaurant to enjoy one of the many house orchestras without having to pay a ridiculous table charge for the pleasure. However, I ended up paying in a different way when a pigeon’s poop landed on my shorts as we were sitting there. After Kristine grabbed a few napkins for me, we headed back to our hotel so that I could wash it off with water and more importantly wash my hands. While we’re on the subject of poop, Kristine and I have noticed an interesting fashion trend here and to a lesser extent all around Europe where girls wear enormously baggy kapris that evoke memories of MC Hammer and parachute pants. We’ve come to call them poop shorts because it makes people look like they have a load in their pants.

By this point in the day, it was starting to get late and we had to grab an early dinner so that we could get back on the road and catch our flight at 11 to head to Barcelona. We decided to explore a new section of Venice by walking from San Marco along the water on the Riva degli Schiavoni in hopes of finding a restaurant along the way. The two restaurants in Frommer’s that we had wanted to try the most were interestingly closed on both Sunday and Monday which happened to be the two days we were in Venice so we were on our own. On our trek we saw the outside of the Bridge of Sighs which we had seen pictures of everywhere in Venice. Unfortunately, this picturesque sight was covered in advertisement billboards which needless to say ruined its beauty. There were a few decent restaurants along the way that we thought about stopping at, but out of dumb luck, we decided to forge on and eventually found the little gem of a street-the Via Garibaldi. It had a bunch of restarants and was the first place we had found in Venice that wasn’t overrun by tourists. We had been talking the past few days about how we couldn’t escape the touristy parts of Venice as souvenir shops and overpriced restaurants seemed to line every street. We were blown away that in our travels we had yet to see even a grocery store or a fruit stand. It seemed as if nobody actually lived in Venice but rather just commuted to work in the service industry. However, Via Garibaldi immediately became my favorite place in Venice. Side streets looked like they were actually lived in and there were plenty of fruit stands, grocery and hardware stores, not to mention a cluster of reasonably priced restaurants. I later noticed that one of Arthur’s restaurants we had wanted to go to was on the Garibaldi, so we had certainly lucked out. The food was pretty good and the wine was fantasic and cheap yet again. I’m not sure if I mentioned it, but restaurants in Europe give you little business cards with your check which for us was a nice way to remember all of the places we have been.

If I ever came back to Venice I would definitely try to find a hotel in this area. San Marco is great to visit, but is a bit overrated in my opinion. When we walked through San Marco on the way back to our hotel, we also saw that most people had cleared out of the Piazza and unfortunately left behind all kinds of litter and trash. We quickly grabbed our bags and hopped onto a vaporetto to get to the bus stop that would take us to the airport. I would highly recommend taking a vaporetto at night to see Venice from the Grand Canal at night. The water was a bit choppy and I was very surprised to see that the gondolas were very stable in the water. On neither the vaporetto nor the bus was there any kind of ticket check which we were surprised by. We got to the airport with plenty of time, especially since the plane was running about a half hour late. The flight was pretty quick, but we still got into Barcelona pretty late, around 1:30am. We hopped on a bus that took us to the Placa Catalunya, which was just a few blocks from our hotel. However, lacking a map, Kristine pushed for a taxi which took us to the Pension Miami, which wasn’t in the greatest part of town. Between the taxi driver warning us to hold onto our things tightly and two separate friends who have spent semesters abroad in Barcelona warning of the pickpocketing, Kristine is pretty nervous and not crazy about Barcelona. Regardless, we made it to our hotel without a problem and passed out around 3am.

We woke up early this morning and made our train no problem. When we got to Venice, we took a vaporetto from the train station to our hotel. It’s basically the public bus system, except that the buses are boats! It’s impossible not to be immediately struck by the beauty down every side street in Venice. When I say street, I really mean river as it seems that the sidestreets are tiny rivers just as often as they are actually streets. Spanning the Grand Canal that we took as it snakes through the middle of Venice were two beautiful bridges that we went under. I later learned that there are in fact four bridges spanning the canal, with one that was completed as recently as 2008. The good news is that because we were so close to Piazza San Marco, the main piazza in Venice we didn’t have far to walk with our bags to our hotel.

Literally right outside of our hotel is a gondola pickup and after we dropped off our bags, we had a while until check-in and sat there for a while to watch a few dozen people getting on and off gondolas. We ended up being pretty hungry and were surprised to find a cheap sandwich place nearby after reading in Frommers how expensive Venice is. Then, we stopped back at the hotel to check in.

We walked around Piazza San Marco looking at a bunch of the major sites in Venice. I immediately recognized the Campanile di San Marco because its on the cover of my Frommer’s book. I’m glad I found it, because I had been wondering what the heck was on the front cover of the book since I got it. From the looks of it, there is going to be a concert in the Piazza tonight. The piazza is lined with expensive shops and restaurants. Many of the restaurants have their own little ensembles playing music while you eat, from a pianist, to a 10 person band. Needless to say, we didn’t even think about going to one of those places. At one of them, I saw a 8.50 euro hot dog on the menu. That’s almost 12 dollars! We went into St. Mark’s basilica, which was pretty unbelievable because the inside is almost entirely covered in gold. Also, there are beautiful mosaics everywhere, not only inside but also outside the basilica because they can stand up to the weather which makes the outside unique in its colorfulness. The mosaics are unbelievable because you would swear they were paintings until you got up close to them. Inside the basilica is the Pala d’Oro, a 10 foot by 4 foot altar screen made of gold and set with 300 emeralds, 300 rubies, 400 garnets, 100 amethysts and 1,300 pearls. While the basilica admission was free, you had to pay 2 euros just to see this screen, but it was recommended in Frommer’s so we did it. It was definitely cool to look at, but it was kind of ridiculous that they made you pay just to look at it.

From reading about Venice, I knew that there weren’t as many concentrated sights to see in Venice but instead that you would appreciate it the most walking around to admire its beauty. With that, he recommended two major shopping strolls in Venice, so we set off from Piazza San Marco toward Campo Morosini ducking in shops and taking plenty of pictures along the way. I can truly say that Venice is the most beautiful of any of the places we have visited, every side street and river included. The only thing about Venice is that it seems that every single street is also filled with tourists and tourist-centric shops. My favorite part of this trip has been finding the places in the city that are away from the rest of the tourists and exploring the real city. In Venice, that just doesn’t seem possible as it is so small and yet brimming with tourists. If anyone actually lives on this island, I would be surprised. The walk took much less time than we expected, so we crossed the Ponte dell’Accademia bridge and continued toward the Punta di Dogana which is at the end of the Canal Grande and looks out onto the city. We sat there for quite a while right at the tip with our feet in the water admiring the view.

It’s crazy to see all of the buildings here look to be on the brink of crumbling. It definitely adds to the charm of the place, but also makes you wonder how long much longer they’ll last. Apparently, Piazza San Marco floods often and we even saw a marker near our hotel that marked the height of a flood 50 or so years ago that was about 3 feet off the ground! We also saw a picture in one of the shops along the way of Piazza San Marco so flooded that Gondolas were in there! We eventually walked back to Piazza San Marco which was easy enough to navigate with plenty of signs pointing us back.. Its great to live so close to the Piazza as these signs make it impossible to get lost. Once we were back, we headed toward another bridge, the Rialto Bridge, which is lined with shops along the way. This particular stroll even has a name, the Merceri. Once we got to the Rialto, we had worked up quite the appetite and looked around at the restaurants nearby on either side of the canal. Boy is Venice expensive. One of the menus we looked at had French fries as an appetizer for 5 euros (7 bucks)!

We ended up finding a restaurant that was semi-reasonably priced that had a tomato and artichoke pizza that Kristine had been craving. I had a veggie pasta dish that was actually really good. I noticed that in Italy, they put far less sauce on their pasta but its still loaded with flavor. It takes some getting used to but I’ve been enjoying it so far. One more thing that is evident is that everything at Italian restaurants comes out unbelievably fast. Every restaurant we have been to has been the same story. Getting the check on the other hand is another story. It is nice that they let you sit around and relax after your meal without making you feel like rushed, but as soon as you get your food, it’s impossible to find a waiter. They don’t come around to ask how your food is and make it very difficult to flag them down for the check. Some restaurants want you to head to the front register to pay, but it’s difficult to know when that is the case (unlike at home when its pretty much only at diner-type restaurants). By the time we finally got the check, we had to rush to get to the Campanile di San Marco to make it there by sunset. We were happy to find that there were no lines to get up to the tower but quickly found out why: a whopping 8 euros each (11 bucks) for the elevator to the top and no option to take the stairs. We bit the bullet and spent quite a while at the top of the tower. The views were incredible.

When we got down to the bottom of the tower, we were just in time to see some Italian military take down the flags from the flag poles in the Piazza San Marco which was pretty cool. Then we headed back to the hotel to plan for the coming day since our flight to Barcelona didn’t leave until 11pm and also bought our plane tickets to go home. We were between two of the cheapest flights, one laving on Thursday morning which was cheaper and also would get me home in time for my mom’s birthday. On the downside, that left us only two days in Barcelona since our flight on the third day left in the early afternoon, leaving us little time for sightseeing. The other flight was an extra $100 and left Friday night, giving us basically two extra days in Barcelona, the downside was an 8 hour layover in Dublin and missing mom’s birthday. We ended up going with the cheaper earlier flight and vowed to wake up bright and early every morning to get the most out of our two days in Barcelona. Then we read emails from two of my friends on recommendations for things to do in Barcelona, which was a great source of information since they both spent semesters abroad there. On tap for our last day in Venice is the Gallerie dell’Accademia and the Ducal Palace. Off to bed!

The train ride was fairly uneventful. When we arrived in Bologna, the shops at the train station were trying to sell maps of Bologna for 7 euros. I refused to pay 10 bucks for a map we were going to use for half a day in Bologna. I had bought our Venice and Florence maps ahead of time in Rome for 3 euros each and our Pisa map was 1 euro, so it was kind of ridiculous. Regardless, it’s pretty tough to find your way around a brand new city without one, which I guess is what they were counting on. Instead, we walked along the main road until we found a map posted in a coffee shop. I couldn’t find our street and eventually thought to look in my emails on my phone and found that my reservation confirmation had some directions from the train station. It wasn’t too far away, but it was north of the train station and the map only went as far north as the station but we got there without a hitch after that. I was ecstatic to have avoided being a sucker when we got to our hotel and they gave us a free map.

Our hotel is actually pretty nice, which I was surprised about given the price. Its pretty much the only legit hotel we have stayed at, rather than a hostel or converted apartment. We threw our things down quickly as it was already mid afternoon and headed down the street toward the historical center of the city. We’re pretty much 3 minutes from the one main road that takes us there. After being in Florence, I was immediately struck by how few tourists we saw in Bologna. In fact, we may have been the only ones. The main drag was lined with shops with great prices rather than tourist-inflated ones. We even stopped by what we thought was a small Mercado off one of the side streets but found it to be an enormous maze of a flea marketselling clothes, shoes, jewelry and anything else you can imagine. It was a great change of pace to try to blend in to the local culture rather than being tourists and visitng all of the sites. The only thing working against us was that I was the only blonde in the whole city.

When we got to the historical part of Bologna, I was blown away to see the towers I had learned about during pledging, the Torre degli Asinelli and the nearby Torre Garisendi which leans quite a bit. They were actually doing some restorations on the towers and had some huge signs explaining the history of the towers, which I really enjoyed learning about. Apparently, Torre Garisendi was abandoned as it began to lean, so instead they tried again and built Torre degli Asinelli right next door. Garisendi had been saved from demolition several times and now has some metal brackets around it to keep it stable. Apparently both are in some danger of falling in the coming years, hence the restoration work. This made me even more grateful that I had been able to fit it into my trip. The only unfortunate thing was that by the time we made it there, we were too late to climb to the top of Torre degli Asinelli, which would have been cool. In a few places around the city, we were also able to see the ancient wall that used to surround the city, which was interesting.

After seeing the towers, we were both pretty hungry and decided to walk back down the main strip since we had seen several restaurants along the way. However, everywhere we went all they had was small hors douvers trays which we think were free if you bought a drink at the bar/restaurant. We weren’t sure whether everyone around here ate early and then had these types of snacks later on or what, but we must have walked into 25 “restaurants” only to find the same thing. Eventually, we remembered that we had seen a great sandwich shop while wandering around looking for a map and hoped to God it was still open. It was, and we had some fantastic sandwiches and sat on a few benches by a fountain at the train station. We headed back to our hotel for some internet time to figure out our hotel for Venice and plan our two days there to make the most of them. I ended up finding a great hotel on Priceline that was inexpensive (for Venice) and was actually a really nice hotel with a fantastic location right on the main Piazza. I’ve really become addicted to the way that we live by the moment and figure things out at the last minute. It’s been working out great and getting us some great deals!

Well, I may have found the reason why this place is so cheap. I woke up this morning with a bunch of mosquito-like bites all over my skin that were super itchy. I'm not sure, but I fear that they may be bed bugs. I suppose that its possible that they are mosquito bites since we slept with the window open, but we have been doing that just about every night since it is so hot. If it was mosquitoes, they were the worst ones I've ever come across. I slept in boxers while Kristine slept in a shirt and shorts, so I have it a lot worse than she does. The only reason I have to hold out hope that they were in fact mosquitoes was that I heard that if you have bed bugs, your sheets have red dots all over them from when you roll over and squish the bed bugs and I couldn't find any such dots. I guess time will tell...

We woke up this morning with the intention of going to Bologna and then continuing on to Venice, similar to our Pisa itinerary. The reason that I wanted to go to Bologna was that it has a history that is intertwined with that of my fraternity and I am thus very familiar with its centuries-old towers and streets. Since we were passing by on the way to Venice, I couldn't help but stop by. However, when we looked around to book a hotel in Venice for tonight, they were all absurdly expensive. It seemed silly to book such a hotel for a night when we would be arriving in the wee hours of the morning. Instead, we called an audible and booked a hotel for Bologna for the night and will arrive in Venice early tomorrow morning, that way we only have to pay for one night in Venice but can spend the better part of two days there. Our train tickets will still be good since they aren't for a specific day/time but are instead good for any time in the next few months.

Anyways, when we got to the train station to discover that the only trains we could see for Bologna were “express” trains and that we had bought “local” train tickets because they are about ¼ of the cost. Kristine was getting close to biting the bullet to make the upgrade because the woman at the ticket counter made it seem like there was no other way to get there. I figured that it wouldn’t make sense that you could buy local tickets if there were no local trains, so I wandered around looking for information booths for a while until I found someone that spoke a reasonable amount of English and told me the route we would have to take (with a transfer). So now, we are just waiting for our train to arrive, killing time playing 500 Rummy.

Florence has been simply fantastic. Though it was overrun with tourists, we managed to find several restaurants off the beaten path, mostly thanks to Frommer's, and got a great feel for what the city is truly like. Not only is it beautiful, but it has so much charm as a city that is smaller and has more personality to it than the larger cities I have been to. While we were waiting at the train station, I went across the street to the grocery store for some snacks. I noticed that people are expected to bag their own groceries here, as the cashier only scans them and then puts them on the platform behind him. This was also the third time in the last few days that I saw someone in the service industry blatantly on their cell phone and holding up customers. While checking out the person in front of me, he stopped for a while to read and respond to a text message. It was then that I saw the same beggar waiting behind the cashier for spare change. It was the fourth time I had seen her in just over two days, all in separate parts of the city. On a random side note, I don’t think I have mentioned it yet, but Florence has a bunch of short buses as their public transportation buses. At least half of their buses are these funny little short buses.

I'm now sitting on the train admiring the Italian countryside. Next stop, Bologna!