Thursday: Part 2 - An adventure to see Sunset over Florence

On Thursday night my goal was to see the Sunset on Piazzale Michaelangelo. I tried to do it on Sunday,  but could not get bus tickets.. I was intent on making it happen. I invited grad students and Emma to go with including Bridgette who is the Residential Life GA here. We invited here to come as a friend, but its hard not to make her work.. (she was born to be an RA).

Fortress was late, so late getting to the train.. made it with 5 minutes to spare to catch a faster train at 5:47.

Got tickets from the Tobacco place to for the bus (number 13 and 12 go to Piazzale Michaelangelo) and began waiting for the bus.. (2.20 EURO for round trip tickets).

Got on the bus, about 10 minutes in people started yelling to stop the bus. An 18 year old boy was having a serious seizure an it went on for at least 10 minutes. I did not not watch the seizure but from the sounds it was awful..  people were holding thej

Eventually, they called an ambulance and took him off the bus, and then they had all of us move to another bus that was 30 minutes behind ours..

It was quite scary and many of the people on the bus did not speak Italian (because this is a well known tourist destination bus)..   so it was upsetting to not be able to communicate or help.


We arrived on Piazzale Michaelangelo just as the sun was setting..   so here are some great pictures.. My little cameras not great with the sunlight, but it was truly beautiful.

Also there was an a guy playing American music on guitar and we all sat listening to popular music and having a beer.. it was wonderful. lots of people watching and people from all over the world.  

After the sun was down, we took the bus back to the train station, and Bridgette knew of a restaurant to go to called ZaZa.  

It was over in front of the central market. It was crazy because during the day this market is filled with stalls with purses and souvenirs, but at night, its just streets full of trash..  it blew my mind..  

Finally got my polenta at ZaZa - this was either coated in cheese and mushroom or liver.  

This was  trial of three kinds of Soups of Tuscany.. I did not like most of them.. and the service speaks to "presentation is everything"

So getting the check in Italy is easier said than done, and we had not seen our waiter in a quite a while. So we stood up, knowing that we needed to catch a train. The manager came over an escorted us to where we would pay.. and I figured out the bill quickly. (we were being a little American with this, but glad we did).

As we began to leisurely walk, Brigitte started to look at trains on her phone and realized the last train was in 10 minutes .. so we we began to run.. Brigitte and Emma went ahead to buy the tickets and Christi Patsy and I kept working.. Good thing about Florence at 11:15 not much traffic..  we made it there in like 8 minutes..  and were able to jump on the last train right before it was leaving.

Adrenaline Rush for sure..

Bridgette said the last transport was a bus to Arezzo in an hour and a half.. and it had a star, and we did not know what that meant or how much that would cost or if it even ran each night.. We almost had to stay until the 4am train.  The train we caught was 1 1/2 hours. it stopped in such odd places.

The windows phone saved the day, the city signs were not lighted, and so I was able to use the Maps feature to see where we were but Arezzo was the last stop.. walking through Arezzo at almost 1 am on a Thursday night was odd.

a few people running around, but very very quiet.  I was quite tired and happy to make it home..

Ahhh what a day..