Sorry Jenny, but Florence SUCKS!

Well I don't suppose we can blame the city for it being 8 million degrees or the hostelbeinga thousand miles from nowhere or even the fact that there are 800,000 other tourists here, but can and WILL blame them for having the worst public transportation, the rudest ticket sellers/takers, and the most jackassy wannabe policemen in the world.

Today was one of or fullest days of touring of the whole trip and while there were some great times in the middle a day that sucks at the beginning and sucks at the end pretty much sucks.

We are lucky to not be in jail right now, or dictating this to a court stenographer, but before we get to or run in with la polizia a word about our hostel. As mentioned its about a million miles away and once you get to it it is down about a 40 mile winding driveway (just kidding...but not really). And it seems that there reception desk policy is to have at least four people standing around while you wait 20 minutes to find out where the laundry room is. To boot, the place is huge and filled to capacity with Canadian high school girls that want a piece of Leo and his harry potter, the shower privacy curtains are seemingly made of 2 square inches of Saran wrap, and th breakfast greeting us prior to 9:00 am consists of nice hard bread and...well, nice hard bread.

That being said we join our heroes as they get on the morning bus to town. With no apparent method of purchasing a ticket, and having ridden last night without incident, we embarked about our day delighted with the free bus system. When we finally got to the very stop where we were intending to get off we were greeted by a not so friendly bus conductor who was informing us that said busses were not in fact free. As we tried to purchase a ticket from him he only insisted that we hand over or passports. Through my protest that we ought not need a passport to buy a simple bus ticket Leo shrewedly informed the man that or passports were back at or hostel and not tucked neatly under or belts as per usual. In an effort to skirt the law we got off the bus but were promptly pursued by our new friend and his accomplice from Hell. They quickly (and repeatedly) informed us that a fine of 45 euros EACH must certainly be imposed. We feigned ignorance (this not being very hard after a combined 48 years of experience between us) pretending not to understand their broken English and pleading for clemency. Whispered ideas of flight were passed between the two of us, unbeknownst to our captors, who were busy with "calls to the police." When their threatening calls went conveniently unanswered down at the station they became more willing to deal. We were able to plea bargain our way to a two-for-one deal and with Leo still desperately wanting to flee, I jumped at the chance to cut or losses and move on with or day (remember that we have a 3 plus hour queue at the Uffizi waiting for us). I was the lucky one to whom the "officers" addressed the ticket so I signed it with my super-secret alias and we went about our day.

We rushed to the Uffizi and the line did not disappoint, so we scored reserved tickets for tomorrow. We then set about enjoying secret passageways at the Palazza Vecchio., 2.50€ calzones for lunch, a free english tour of possibly made up facts with a spunky (if toothy) Brit, the tombs of lots of famous people at Santa Croce, and the dry, desert wasteland of the Boboli Gardens in summer (though we did catch a glimpse into Beas' future--postcard pending). After a long and ardous walk we scored a beautiful and peaceful sunset at the Piazza Michealangelo, which was gorgeous if yo could block out the throngs of idiot americans surrounding us.

The walk home was tough, made tougher by spicy (but filling) kababs and Leo's refusal to use the bathroom all day. Naturally we found our selves having to wait copious ammounts of time for the Bus from hell that was, of course,entirely full when we got on.

But now we're home and we gotta go, more later from Roma