Friday, October 21, 2011

Florentine

I arrived to my hostel Florence Plus,  massively impressed, it's perfect. I would say even better than the Wombats hostel I stayed at in Vienna. This room was even bigger, I'd even say this place was like a hotel especially since it had a restaurant.
I went down to the tour desk first up to book in for the pub crawl that night.  Also booking in was an Aussie, a Korean Aussie medical inturn named Van. On first glance he looks like a sumo wrestler / gangsta.  Nice enough though we walked around the city, grabbed a beer and chatted before I went back to the dorm to chill out and get ready.

The Pub Crawlers all met down in the lobby at 8pm a small group of 11 people. Dinner was included upstairs on the terrace we got pasta, bruschetta, croquettes and bottomless wine. It was a great way for us to warm up and get to know eachother.  A really lovely bunch of people, mainly English speaking i.e. Aussies, Brits, Kiwis etc.
We all headed to the first bar, free sparkling wine and a shot on arrival.  I made a new friend, David. He and I were of similar age, he's a Canadian Scottsman and was like my little spiritual mate, bonding over universal law, alignment, stars, destiny, dreams, childhoods and travels. We were kind of like twins... espeically considering we share the same birthday... spooky!

At the 2nd bar Van, David and I thought more shots were a good idea so on came tequila slammers, limoncello, meanwhile I was already drinking a sex on the beach cocktail.

At the 3rd bar, it was a free shot with any drink. Oh dear, this is where things go blank. My bad.  To cut a long story short, I wasn't feeling too well so I had to bail.

The next day was a complete waste. I was a wreck! Thankfully noone else had checked into my room so I could suffer in silence.  I was really upset with myself for wasting a day, it was irresponsible and stupid, but there's no point in dwelling on it. After sleeping most of the day, that night all I knew all I could stomach was McDonalds, so off I went.  When I returned I did a load of washing and then watched MTV.

Next morning I went down to the restaurant for some breakfast and bumped into lovely Londoner Mel. She was on my pubcrawl. After breaky her and I went to find our other Aussie mates from the night Connor and Jess.  The four of us walked the city and made out way to Galleria dell Accademia where the most famous statue in the world lies... David.

There are many beautiful sculptures in this museum but when your eyes set upon David, isolated in his own corner of the building, with his own domed ceiling, with light beaming down on him, its beautiful.  He is huge, smooth, white, you just want to reach out and run your hands over his foot.  His hands and feet and massive, almost out of proportion.  He looks sad, almost like he is not proud of his deafeat of Golliath.  He stands there, in perfect form, sling slung over his shoulder gazing off to who knows where.






That night I enjoyed a delicious Spinach and Ricotta Canneloni with my friends and we parted ways about 10pm.  I was to go pack, and have an early night as the next morning I would get my train to Interlaken.

Florence is a gorgous, safe city.  It is not overrun with tourists, beggars or peddlers the way Rome is.  I wish I had more time here, but as always I must leave and make way to my next destination.
x

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