Right?
So Brittney and I board our train, and head out. 12 minutes later we arrive in Fiesole-Caldine. We are in, what I would call, an Italian suburb. But I figure, hey, we’ll find it. Problem number 1: the train station was so small that they didn’t sell maps like Brittney and I both thought they would. Problem 2: We were officially out of Florence, so people no longer have a basic working knowledge of the English language because of the tourists. (expected, but annoying, I am in ITALY after all). Problem 3: we were definitely not where we needed to be. So I asked a man “Dove piazza mino da Fiesole?” (meaning: where is this piazza?) He starts explaining it to me. On a whim I ask “parla inglese?” seeing if he spoke English. “NO” and continues to explain it to me in Italian. I saw him point one way, so we set off that way. About half an hour later, we see no sign of a town at all, just apartment buildings, and decide to cut our losses and head back to Florence.
We head back to the train station, and we are still in pretty good spirits. We pop on the train, and as we sit down, we see another train pull up right beside it, and both of us say “are we sure that this is our train?” It wasn’t. We ride to the first stop. NO DOOR WILL OPEN. We go to the next stop. NO DOOR WILL OPEN. We go to the next stop and finally the doors open. By now we have every single person on that train gawking at us. Thanks, guys. So we get off.
Another train was coming in half an hour so we decided just to wait and hop on that one for we were sure that we read everything correctly. We waited, and we were still in good spirits. We were taking pictures because we really were in Italian countryside by this point. We get on the train, and as we get on they read off the list of stops, and one is the Santa Maria Novella (the Florence train station). So we both think, ok good, we are in good shape. WRONG. About 3 stops later the whole train stops and shuts down, and we infer that this man just told us that this train is done. Dang.
We look at the schedule again, and there is another train going to santa maria novella arriving at the station in 20 minutes. So, we wait. In the mean time, all the Italians on the platform are staring at us. Again.
The train comes, and it is packed. I, along with about 10 others are forced to stand. This is my favorite part of the story. The train was so cramped, and it was so stuffy from overcrowding, that I knew I may have an issue. At the third to last stop on the train, my skin gets clammy, my stomach clenches up, and I can feel myself getting dizzy. I see no other option than to sit down on the floor of the train. Otherwise, I would end up in someone’s lap. So I sit down, and that helps, but as we were nearing the Florence train station, I tell Brittney to get off this train as fast as she can because I was either going to faint or be sick, and I know nobody wanted that. And guess what all of the people on the train did. THEY STARED AT ME. THEY ONLY STARED AT ME. If I was feeling better I thought about making faces back at them, but at the moment it was not my top priority.
Bless Brittney, she later told me that she knew something was wrong when I was turning unnatural colors, but she had no water, and spoke no Italian, so she had no idea what to do. I ended up shoving my way off the train, sitting down on the ground while she ran and got us both drinks. Not my proudest moment. Especially because I had done so well up until now. I had heard from so many sources about how hot Florence was, so I had almost constantly been drinking water. Today was my pitfall.
We ended up going straight to dinner because both of us were starving, but because there were three smokers at the next table we ended up finishing quickly and taking the leftovers back to our apartment.
So that was today. It also appears that men have gotten more brazen in the past day. I have been here longer than two weeks without any incidents of the “obnoxious flirty Italian men.” Today everything changed. On the way back from the train station, the sleaze balls were out in force. Brittney and I are taking another easy night. We are going out for gelato later, but it was quite an adventurous day.
Positive points of the day:
- I saw cities of which I had never heard.
- I got a lot of practice with the train system, which I will need come my hoo-xpedition.
- I got to see more landscape than I would have normally.
Negative points for the day:
- Almost fainted on a train
- Never really saw Fiesole in all its glory. Personally, I am calling it my Ivars of Italy.
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