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Back in Florence!
Mar. 30th, 2009 09:57 pmI feel suddenly brilliant. Not only am I speaking a language I know (rather than getting by with two dozen Croatian words and the expectation that people will know English), but I'm in Tuscany and so am not wading through regional dialects and accents. I've also spent a lot of time here over the years, so right off the bat I've been giving directions to tourists wielding maps and befuddled expressions ("this is the back side of the church you're looking for; if you go up this street and around you'll find the entrance").
The ferry crossing went very well, but the waves were incredibly high. As I lie here typing this in bed the world still has a gentle rocking motion to it. At 11:30 at night, in rough seas, a ringing alarm went off. Thinking the worst (especially since we had a pretty serious port list at the time), I grabbed my passport and went topside. It turns out that it was probably just a smoke alarm from someone smoking in their room and that the registration desk hadn't known anything was awry, but it's certainly a good way to wake from a dead sleep into total panic.
Last night, on a mostly empty ship, I got a cabin entirely to myself. Tonight I've got five roommates since I'm staying at a hostel, but it's the best hostel I've ever seen (which is why I'm back; I stayed here in '07). I'm playing the cheapskate since my point in being here is as a base of operations for busking the nearby cities of Prato and Pistoia and, once I get the hang of local regulations, hopefully picking one of the two to spend the weekend. Here's hoping for good things!
The ferry crossing went very well, but the waves were incredibly high. As I lie here typing this in bed the world still has a gentle rocking motion to it. At 11:30 at night, in rough seas, a ringing alarm went off. Thinking the worst (especially since we had a pretty serious port list at the time), I grabbed my passport and went topside. It turns out that it was probably just a smoke alarm from someone smoking in their room and that the registration desk hadn't known anything was awry, but it's certainly a good way to wake from a dead sleep into total panic.
Last night, on a mostly empty ship, I got a cabin entirely to myself. Tonight I've got five roommates since I'm staying at a hostel, but it's the best hostel I've ever seen (which is why I'm back; I stayed here in '07). I'm playing the cheapskate since my point in being here is as a base of operations for busking the nearby cities of Prato and Pistoia and, once I get the hang of local regulations, hopefully picking one of the two to spend the weekend. Here's hoping for good things!
