Revisiting an Old Enemy

Today is my second of three days in Florence and so far it has been wonderful. I have enjoyed the warm heat from the Tuscan sun, walking the aged streets and just being back in Italy. This is strange for me though Florence has not always been my friend. Looking back to when I first met Florence this past May I absolutely hated it the only peace that it provided me was the hour on top of Santa Maria Fiori and another hour looking at Michelangelo's David, but those were the only two out of the eight I spent in Florence that day. So what caused this great conflict between me an Florence? Well...I really do not know because after the last forty eight hours that I have experienced in this city, it is hard to think that I had such hard feelings for this place. I think, looking back at who I was and what I had experienced up to my visit in May, Florence was just overwhelming, like most Americans are to Europeans when they first meet. I had not lived or visited a big city in Europe yet, was just getting used to be over seas, and other tourist who are not studying architecture just get in the way and become very annoying. So I have matured, visited many other places and have become familiar with life as a Nomadic Student in Europe who to the untrained eye looks like any other tourist from the States, but I am used to that and can live with it. So after these fives months of being apart, and experiencing some more of the world I ahve been prepared to see Florence again and live in it with more confidence and see it through all of its distractions or faults. Now that I can see past these things Florence has become one of the richest cities I have visted, home to so many great names: Medici, Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Brunolleschi. It is a city that I can now call my friend a place I can visit again and feel comfortable, Florence is definitely an old enemy in my Europe experience.

I Get Around

If you like 2Pac or the Beach Boys you are familiar with this phrase, each having there own context as well as me. So I have been getting around Europe for the last six months and it has not just been by train, or car or my own two feet. I was on a bus last week in Spain on my way to Sevilla to catch a train to Paris, and was thinking about all of my traveling experiences and modes for the last six months, and I think I have used almost every mode possible. I mean I have used, trains, planes, cars, boats, ferries, scooters, buses, trams, subways, my own two feet, bikes, gondolas, but even some of these modes have sub modes like trains for example. Here in Italy they have Euro Star, Euro City, Inter City, and Regional trains all traveling at different speeds and with different functions. In Spain I took an overnight train with sleeper car and a restaurant to Paris so I could go to Basel Switzerland faster, cause that is how the Euro Rail works some times. Buses I have taken charter buses and city buses and some inter city buses that are like charter buses, but part of the public transportation system. It is a crazy thought, to think that I have traveled around Europe, eleven different countries and not once have I needed my own car, I may have needed a car but not my own. But when I get home life seams so impossible with out my car, it is so easy to get from point A to point B. I don not really know where this is going but that one day on that bus got me thinking about all the different places I have been and how I got there and wondering why I need a car back home. The two things I can think of are home is in the US and rural US so public transportation does not exist and second having a car is easy, but getting around Europe has been a thrill and I would do it all over again if when I have the chance. So that is how I get around....My Europe.

Plan C

I am exhausted, and it is not from five months of traveling, but I have just lived 48 of the most crazy and unplanned hours of my life. Twenty four hours ago I was in a back of a Fiat Punto, the equivalent to a 4 door VW golf, but not the back seat the hatch, the trunk or what ever you want to call it laying on a bed of backpacks so I wouldn't be seen by the Spanish high patrol and identified as the sixth passenger in a five passenger car, on our way back to Madrid. By this time all I was thinking about was my bed and how I haven't slept in it for the last twenty for hours because of a crazy assignment to eat churros with chocolate at four in the mourning with the rest of Madrid's drunk population, which wasn't completed eventhough I pulled an all-nighter something that shoul donly be done when at Cheever, but I am a long way from that place. Ok, now I will fill in the missing hours between not eating churros and chocolate and riding in the back of Fiat Punto on a bed of backpacks. To start we missed our eight o'clock train becaused we, a few, six of my classmates and I had accidentally fallen asleep while watching the Cleveland, Yankees game on the internet, to soon be woken up by a knock at the door which led to the realization that we had missed our train when someone looked at the clock. I then got out of bed and ran down to the lobby to check on train times to Valencia, our destination for the day, to figure out the next possible train which would was at 11:20 a.m.. Back in the room now, it is 9:15 and we have now missed three trains that were headed to Valencia and the 11:20 was the last reasonable train left for a day trip. After this news had left my mouth, and had been understood by my hotelmates they quickly roled over and went back to sleep, with the idea that we would all catch a train at 11:20 and be in Valencia by 3 in the afternoon. By now sleep was not on my mind, I had just scored some valuable time to run to th epost office which is located about 3/4 of a kilometer down the Grand Via and mail a wonderful gift to my parents, then run back intime to wake up my hotel mates and catch the 11:20 train. To make this already long story short the post office took forever, which should have been anticipated, and I arrived back in the hotel room at 10:50 panting with 30 minutes left until the 11:20 train (so popular in this story) would leave for Valencia. In the next ten minutes four of us six were in the elevator yelling at the other two to hurry and on our way to the tram which woul drop us off just under the train station just in time, NOT! Yeah as you know or have probably figured out, we did not make the 11:20 train and the two left behind caught up to the four of us already in the train station trying to figure out where to go or what to do next. It took us about an hour to come up with one simple solution which would lead to a great journey half way across Spain, rent a car! And that is what we did, rent a car not just any car but a sky blue Fiat Punto. After trying many seating configurations for getting six persons in a five persons car we were off and on our way to Valencia, one full grown male in the trunk three in the back seat one shot-gun and the other driving. This configuration proved to work well and lead to many laughs, but also the cause of one big problem it is illegal and we got caught, and what made it worse we only had 15 more kilometers until we were at or final destination. All six of us were trying to communicate with two Spanish patrolmen who did not speak a lick of english or at least acted like they didn't, about or travels and why we had six peopel in the car. We did not get any sympathy for being international and nieve, and ended up with a 42 dollar ticket which we had to pay on the spot to keep traveling, but durring these ten minutes we learned of a Spanish law that you can not be a on the shoulder of a highway in Spain outside of your car without a pertective vest, and if we wanted to not get caught again whoever was in the back must keep there body out of site. The question must have run through your mine by now, " Why would six architecture students want to go to Valencia, Spain on their day off?" Here's the answer, cool architecture, I won't describe it but just check out Santiago Calatrava's City of Science. So we came we saw and we conquered, well not really. We spent six and half hours in Valencia getting close to a hundred cool pics a peace there, while exploring its' streets and buildings. Durring this whole entire time we had left our dear Fiat Punto in a parking place that was wierdly marked we didn't know if we could park there but we took a chance. Walking abck in the dark from the City of Science we were all going over what we would do if we arrived at our parking spot a half hour walk away and it was gone. For sure we would have to find it but how? That is where the questioning stoped and the hope and praying began. As we came up to our spot we all held our breath hoping for what we saw, the Fiat had made it through the day and even without a ticket, and again we were on our way half way across Spain to Madrid at 10:45 in the evening with six cramed into a Fiat Punto, me in the back this time on a bed of back packs wishing for my bed so I could get up and go to my first bull fight the next day. This is the story of me and friend's plan C..................in Europe.

Back-Track

Now to back track from all that futbol talk, that must have spurred from my excitement from that whole expierence, I will now share my experiences in Paris. When I left Rome at the end of July the 25th to be exact I thought would would never see a city, with such a sense of aw. I lived in this train of thought for about three months until I arrived at the outskirts of the Triumphal Arch. The sun settingin the weast, night lights just starting to shine and thirteen lanes of traffic seperating me from one of the best axis developed by man. From the arch you could see from on end of Paris to the other and if you turned 90 degrees you can get a peek at the top of the Eiffel Tower. The of Eiffel Tower should be a blogg in itself. The Eiffel was lit in the festive colors green and white for the Rugby World Cup, hosted by Paris this year. I didn't mind the odd colors or the gigant glowing rugby ball hanging form the second tier, just to see the Eiffel stand out from the rest of Paris's sky line with the moon as its backdrop was amazing, proving Paris to be the city of love or at least for that night one of the most romantic places in the world. This is my Europe Back-Track.