Italy Day Uno...Florence...

There was nothing righteous about the beginning of the trip. We had to kill entirely too much time at both İstanbul's and Bologna's airports, until catching a 5.15 AM train to Florence, where we were to spend our first day/night in Italy.

The only real plus was the croissant I had as soon as we landed. Of course, they don't have croıssants in İstanbul. And of course, it was delicious.

Boarding the 5.15 train to Florence amidst hordes of dudes pissing on the tracks felt right in so many ways. I suppose it actually felt more comfortable than right. It hadn't been that long since me and lady luck rode the rails in the hopes of escape and discovery. At least the 5.15 train from Bologna to Florence was comparable to the shit trains in Poland. Sort of eased me in and all.

I grabbed the first bit of sleep I had all night but soon found myself in Florence. It was almost half past 6 by this poınt, but for some reason there was no sign of the sun. Absolutely nothing. Kind of freaked me out.

We left the station around 7.15 after getting some help from a fucking friendly train dude. He saved us lots of cash. Awesome.

We wandered around 'til 8 or so. Still no sun. Really weird.

Finally found our hostel and slept 'til 10 or so. Hit the town under a bit of rain and some clouds t'boot. To the city center, where I was surprised t'see how many pizzerias there were. Really. Why was I surprised? You'd think it was some kind of sacred art over here but it almost cheapened it, I thought.

Anyway, the city center was righteous. The Duomo, the world's first dome, apparently. You mean to tell me that never before in the history of mankind, no one made a semi-circle? Apparently not. I wasn't about to doubt Lonely Planet this early in the trip.

It was a pretty righteous spectacle and walking around all wide eyed and wide mouthed made me hungry. We used a Lonely Planet suggestion and stopped in at a Panini Bar. "A local institution" (There were a lot of those)

Anyway, I think these panini bars were the best food I ate the entire trip. Just stop in at any hole in the wall, have a small glass of house red and fresh mozzarella and prosciutto packed between even better bread. I started my day with one of these and I'd continue to for the rest of the day.

We continued on towards one of the city's many bridges. Lots of overpriced jewellery but good photos nonetheless. Aesthetıcally, Florence has it made. Which makes sense, considering how many art museums and dudes in Berets there were. After the bridge we stopped for 'za and tomato soup (And I quote..."I don't know what they put in there...But it tastes exactly like it's supposed to taste") and headed out to find Michaelangelo's "David".

It wasn't all that hard to find the museum, considering it wasn't all that well-hyped or labelled. Kind of a hole in the wall. Anyway, soon enough, I'm looking at the statue, knowing how important everyone thinks it is, but I'm still no sure how t'feel.

Simply put, I couldn't take my eyes of his hands. Man, that fucker had some monsters. Really disproportıonate to the rest of his body. But cool t'see. If yer tired enough, and you allow yer mind to wander, the statue starts to bob and weave like Cassius Clay. But I was really tired.

From there, we headed up to the top of some watch tower to get a view of the city. 414 steps, which doesn't sound all that impressive now. But it was. Good views, even worse tourists up there. But really awesome views. From the top, I realized that that was the best part of traipsing from city to city. Just getting up and getting higher. It's as terribly cliched as people think it is; but we all know that we love taking part in cliches. Anyway, felt good up there.

But I wondered what else there was to see as well. So we checked out a meat market, and I realized how much I missed pork. Damn. I bought an 8 euro hunk of salted, cured pork and carried that fucker around with me for the rest of the trip.

It must have been dark by then. So we looked for dinner. A Ma and Pa joint served us lots of house wine, salads an righteous pastas. Then more wine. Then some dessert. Our waiter had a lazy eye and kept saying "Don't mention it". So we didn't...But damn was that eye lazy.

Anyway, we called it delicious after a few more glasses of wine and prepared for our early trip out to Venice.

Pork. Awesome.