Friday in Italy

Just got setup at Internet Train for net access but already wrote up Friday's entry on my laptop. So, for now, this is a placeholder. Main points
- 3 hr delay in NYC
- Train ticket for Florence only good for 3 hrs past scheduled time, not all day, so had to pay for new one
- Got nice and lost trying to find hotel. Good thing I had GPS to get me there.
- Beautiful city. Heavy rain and thunderstorm. fun to wander


Arrived in Florence

Well, its the end of day one. It's been an interesting day to say the least. As noted in my last post, we had a slight delay in NYC. Ended up leaving about 3 hours after our scheduled departure time. I was able to find and get in to the Admiral's Club lounge though so at least it was a comfortable wait. The flight over was 7 hrs, 42 minutes. It went pretty well though since I had a cool seatmate to chat with during the flight. Once we arrived in Rome it felt like we taxid longer than we had flown. Eventualy we did get to disembark. Passport control took a long time as I suspect many flights came in at the same time. If we had been on our scheduld 7:40 arrival time I have a feeling the crowds would have been smaller. But, once I passed that things went pretty smoothly. Well, except for my train ticket from Roma Termini to Florence. Although the RailPass people told me my ticket was good all day its apparently only good within 3 hours of the original departure time. Mine was 9:55 and by the time I got to the station the next train was at 1:30. So, worthless ticket and I had to buy another one. Oh well. The ride to Florence was very smooth and comfortable. Great scenery too.

Once I got in my next challenge was to find the B&B where I'm staying. I figured it was easy from looking at the map and that I could just wing it. Well, after winging it for a bit I made a nice big circle back to the Florence train station. Oops :). Out came the Garmin GPS which I had already pre-programmed with key addresses. Got that and up running and found the hotel easily. Checked in, droppped off my bags, and headed back out the door.

Since I got in later than I had planned I wasn't sure what to start with. I figured I'd just wander a bit so I headed past the Duomo and toward the Uffizi Gallery and Ponte Vecchio. Took a lot of pictures of the Duomo buildings and just random things along the way. This city is beautiful and thats just from seeing the buildings. It is a bit more cramped and less organized/logical than Berlin though. And the streets are kinda free for all with pedestrians and scooters/cars kinda sharing some roads. I managed to survive that though and made it to the bridge. I was trying to find a bar my dad had told me about but was unable to do so. So I instead went in to the Golden View Open Bar (http://goldenviewopenbar.com/) and enjoyed a nice glass of chianti with some primavera. Although I had expected bread, I received a pizza with basil and cherry tomatoes. very tasty though and defnitely good. After that snack/mini-meal I started to walk back to the hotel and got caugh in a heck of a rain storm. Thunder and all. I did mange to find Grom gelateria that Simon had recommended so I just had to take cover in there. And since I was there I figured I might as well get something. I tried their lemon gelato and while it was good I think I can do better. Next time I'll go for a two flavor combo with chocolate and something good. After that though I figured I was done, especially with the rain. Came back to my room and cleaned up a bit, typed this up, and now I'll read more guide books before calling it a night. If I had net access right now I'd post this but guess it'll have to wait.