First weekend trip 2/7-2/9

A brief bump in the road

Before leaving on our 7:25 PM train to Florence from Rome’s Termini station, my group consisting of myself, Katie, Jamie, and Cat experienced our first travel mishap. Since it is only our first weekend here, we are still a little unsure of exactly how to get around, but getting to the Termini station is usually easy. There is only one bus that goes from the Duquesne in Rome campus to the stop where the metro is. When arriving at this stop and walking the 10 minutes to the metro, we see what seems like 200 people all rushing around outside of the stop, which was something we’d never seen before. There was a transit worker at the gates turning people away, and panic started to settle in for me. Luckily, we left a good 2 hours before our train just in case anything like this happened. Our ARD’s here helped find an alternate route, and at this point it was about 6 PM. We hurried back to the bus stop to wait for the 916 which would take us all the way into the city. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity ( I think it was really only 5 minutes), the bus came and the group packed into this bus. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a bus more crowded than this one; everyone must have had the same idea as we did. At around 6:40 PM, and still not close to the Termini train station, everyone started to panic just a little bit. We decided to get off at the next stop and call a taxi, which looking back, was the best thing to do. We got off the bus around 7 PM, called the taxi, and our estimated arrival at the station was 7:12 PM, and that time was spot on. Arriving at the station, the four of us jumped out of the car and ran inside to find what platform to go to. This station is our equivalent of Grand Central Station, where as soon as the platform is updated on the board, the herd of people waiting start pushing and pulling and rushing. Upon arriving at what we thought was the right platform a little before 7:20 PM, someone glances at the board and sees that we are now at platform 5, and that we only have 5 minutes to get there. We weaved through the sea of people, arriving at platform 5, and splitting up to sit in our respective seats and cars. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so much relief sitting on a loud, crowded train car. We made it…with perfect timing. I’m glad this experience happened to us early on because it showed me how fast plans can change and how important it is to use the resources available to you to make an alternate plan. I also realised that we should be building in a lot of extra time for travel, because if something this hectic happened our first weekend here, then it will for sure happen again, next time possibly in a different country!

Florence

Arriving in Florence was a whirlwind. My group, Katie, Cat, Jamie and I were all hangry by the time we arrived at the station, close to 9:30 PM. Our AirBnB was about a 15 minute walk from the train station, so we walk in awe from the train station through the cobblestone and brick streets. Once our GPS tells us that we’re about 5 minutes away, we turn right onto our street to see probably the most famous landmark in Florence: The Cathedral of Santa Maria Del Fiore. This huge landmark, that looks more like a movie set than a real place, is right around the corner from where we are living for the weekend. That just had me starstruck from the start.

The street addresses in Florence were a little confusing and we walked past where we were staying probably 2-3 times before realising that we were in the right place. There were these two huge doors with handles taller than me on the door, and a very narrow doorway. We enter, only to see a giant staircase. We then realize that we are on the 8th floor with no elevator (which no one was happy about). But, we made it to the right place, and got inside to be even more amazed. The view from our front window was the huge, beautiful dome of the Cathedral. We really lucked out with finding this place! It was the perfect size for the 6 of us sharing, and was in a prime location. Right across the street from us was a restaurant, where we ate dinner that night. I will never get tired of the dinners here- an appetizer with a bottle of house white wine and a nice pasta dish. After a very late dinner, finishing at about 11 PM, we went back, unpacked, and prepared for the early morning ahead.

The next morning, all of Duquesne met up for a tour of Florence. The city is very walkable, and we had an amazing tour guide. We hit the landmarks, like the leather market, the statue of David, and had the typical long, 2 hour Italian lunch with a couple of courses, and ended by the Cathedral that was right near where we were staying. We learned so much on the tour, my brain felt like mush after. When we were let go at around 4 PM to go off and do our own thing, my group split off and decided to go shopping, because there were so many cute boutiques, clothing stores, and of course, the leather market. I bought a pair of jeans from Zara, a European fashion store. This was a little bit of a struggle finding my size, because here there is no such thing as a size 4 or 6 here. Everything is between the 20’s-40’s that I saw in store, so we all decided to just find random sizes and try them on to see what fit, which actually took 4 or 5 pairs. I will definitely remember my size for next time. After Zara, we ran to the leather market. There were bags of every color, shape, size, and price (some were wayyyy more expensive than I even want to think about). I ended up getting an AMAZING crossbody blue bag that I love and use all the time now (it’s in one of the pictures above). I still find that waiting for dinner is the hardest part of the day, because typically Italian people don’t eat dinner until later than what I’m used to, around 7:30 or 8. After that, we returned to the AirBnB, and got ready to head out the next day to San G.