Finally Home

I should have arrived home on Saturday the 19th, but on Friday night it decided to snow in Florence for the first time in about 10 years or so...

The Ponte Vecchio is somewhere in the background

On our way to Friends Pub for one last time.

A snow covered Duomo

The view from the terrace.

The view on the train to Rome.

It was definitely gorgeous and the experience of a lifetime to see snow in Florence, as well as have the opportunity to have a snowball fight and annoy all the Italians, but it ended up being hell the next day when it was time to leave. There wasn't actually a lot of snow, but the next morning when I went to catch my 7am train to Rome, there were already delays of up to an hour and eventually my train was even canceled. Unfortunately for me, it hadn't snowed in Rome and there were no delays flying out of there, so when I finally did catch a train from Florence it was about 9:30pm and I didn't make it to the airport until about 12:30...my flight was at 12:15.

And here's where the bitterness really kicked in.
I had no cell phone, barely any cash (because I expected the most money I would need was when I arrived home), and had to buy an entire new flight more or less. Since I hadn't missed my connecting flight in Dublin, technically, I could call the airline pay a penalty fee and buy another ticket for the difference, which is what I did, however I couldn't get a flight until Monday and the price was still astronomical. It was almost what I had paid for my round trip flight.

Luckily, I didn't get stuck at the airport for 2 days... I actually ended up in Gaeta, which is a whole other story within itself.

And So it Begins

Arriving in Italy was an adventure in itself. I decided to fly into Rome and then take the train to Florence. I had not slept at all on my connecting flight from Dublin--I was tired, hungry, thirsty, and did not know even one word in Italian. First, I had to take a train from the airport to the main station Roma Termini, then I had to figure out where to buy a ticket and the difference between track numbers and train numbers in Italian, which wasn't really that obvious. At many points I wanted to give up because it was even more difficult to find people who spoke English.

The train took about 2 and a half hours. Luckily I was able to sleep and thankfully these Italians sitting across from me helped me out even though we had no idea what we were actually saying to each other. My next battle would be to find the hotel we were staying at for the first two nights--Hotel Villani. Basically, I traveled ill prepared and ill equipped. The only thing I did manage to do properly, was pack extremely light, but I had a crappy walking directions from Google maps and an address to get me to where I needed to go.

After walking around for 10 minutes or so getting frustrated and overheated trying to find street names, or at least something from my map to get my bearings, I came upon the Duomo. I looked up, stopped dragging my suitcase and forgot about how miserable my journey had been up to this point.Eventually I gave up. I stopped for help, but none of the directions seemed to make sense. So, I found a taxi stand, gave him the address, and relaxed. The hotel ended up being on an extremely small street that runs parallel to the Duomo. I more or less felt like an idiot, but honestly, I never would have found it, so it was better that way.

These pictures are from the hotel roof a little after I arrived. The lighting was gorgeous and these were the first pictures I took in Florence--the pictures that have reinspired me to be productive again.