We arrived at our hostel Saturday evening after walking a grueling ten blocks from the train station with 12.5 kilos on my back and Angela pulling a rolly suitcase with a broken wheel… we found the city to be a city and not nearly as beautiful as everyone said and we finally found the hostel with a little sign that said “Call when you arrive.” Travelers don’t generally have reliable access to phones. In my frustration I yelled into the building intercom “Call you? How are we supposed to call you, coño?” (coño is a rude word I have picked up due to its common use in Spain and it will not be translated or repeated). We were buzzed in. The man that runs Emerald Fields was not, in fact, a coño, but a cool Italian with a cool hostel. He went over Florence’s geography and highlights with each traveler in his broken English before inviting those hanging around to a bar or out to dinner. A small, friendly, clean, homey, cheap hostel really can be the key to a city, because though Let’s Go can give food and bar advice, the best advice comes from friendly, English-speaking locals and the best fun is found in the company of a random assortment of English-speaking travelers, other locals, and of course Angela.
We spent Sunday in silly fatigue, deciding to forgo the Academia and the Uffizi because the lines were too long, instead hiking to the other side of the river and up to Piazzale Michelangelo where we sat admiring the view of the city and, of course, David’s bottom half. They’re really ridiculous about that. Italians apparently really like their body parts.
We sat outside San Croce church for awhile, thinking 6€ was defiantly not worth it to enter. We wandered around for hours trying to find a restaurant that was recommended both by our hostel roommates and my guidebook, but went somewhere else when we were convinced that it didn’t exist and it wasn’t open on Sundays. We marveled at the thousands of bottles of red wine and couple bottles of absenthe in a wine bar, and stood outside of Dante’s house cursing Mondays. We were ripped off on gelato, iced tea, and breakfast, but were actually quite successful on purchases at the flea market. We admired the gold doors and the beautiful duomo inside and out and were kicked off the stairs as we sat admiring it some more. We actually saw the synagogue, the most ornate and beautiful and high security I have ever seen. We also eventually found the restaurant we were looking for on Monday, but the food was mediocre and one of the waiters was being creepy.
Alright, maybe it wasn’t as idle as it seemed at the time. I wish I knew more about art and didn’t have to ask Angela every five minutes, “Is this famous?” at the Uffizi. But we did see a few pieces I recognized, and a really cool exhibit about Leonardo DaVinci, and we didn’t have to wait in line because we were serious and got up at seven in order to be there before it opened. We did have to wait in line for two long hours and pay too much to see David, but the Academia did turn out to be, according to our official trip rankings, first on our list of favorite museums. David is David, I mean, we’ve all seen him. But to see the original statue in person, its SIZE, its perfect human detail, an experience I really can’t quite recount or repeat. Truly amazing, breath-taking, awe-inspiring… and worth the time and money to circle the statue for half hour, head up, mouth open, trying to comprehend how in the world Michelangelo took a block of marble and sculpted it into a living, breathing human being. We went out with a bang.
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