The Wacky World of a Lazy Pig (AKA Simon)

Eurotrip Day 18 - Steve Tang Dominican Republican Gigolo (Leaning Tower of Pisa), Florence and where the heck are the cars?

It was weird waking up so early again, especially without Roger around. Steve was still the same, taking his sweet ass time to get out of bed and making the funniest wake up noises. We woke up really really really early to start our very very busy day. It wasn't supposed to busy. Our original plan was to just take the train to Venice and just hang out there. But after we sent Roger off at the train station yesterday, we decided to make our trip a little more exciting by just going to different places that we originally had not planned.

Within 30 minutes, we were up and ready to leave the hostel. Steve and I rushed to the train station with our heavy packs just to make sure that we wouldn't miss a train. But to be honest, the chances that we would miss a train was slim as we normally got to the station atleast 30 minutes early to verify the platform that we needed to get on.

Our first stop, PISA!! That is right, we were heading in a weird direction back up north. From here on, the Rick Steve's book was of little use. The only reason why we decided to go to Pisa was to see the Leaning Tower. To be honest, I don't know if there was anything else there other than the tower. Hopefully the stop would be worth it. The trips were once again different without Roger around. I did the same, read my book, while Steve do his usual, sleep.

After 3 hours, we arrived at the Station in Pisa. Both of us had to get off really quickly because the train really didn't stop for long until it had to start going again. Steve and I were the weird looking ones as we came off the train. No one else was backpacking here, though I guess there were some tourists around. Anyway, we had no idea where to go to where the tower was. Tourist offices didn't seem to be open so Steve just asked a random person. According to Steve's translation, the tower wasn't far from the station. It was a walkable distance. But I think the thing we didn't consider was that we had to walk with our heavy backpacks. Especially for me, mine was already gaining some weight with some of the gifts that I had bought.

Though Roger wasn't here, I was sort of glad that we didn't have to worry about him complaining about too much walking. To me, even if the Tower tok 25 minutes to teach by walking, I would have gone for it because it was worth the trip. Steve and I talked and took a lot of pictures on the way to tower and before we knew it, we could see the tower on the horizon. Our pace picked up until it we were almost speed walking. I had always seen the leaning tower of Pisa in pictures on never in picture. Thank goodness I came because it was really nice.

The tower itself is of course leaning. The surrounding area was full was souvenir shops all selling the same thing, mini versions of the tower. The first thing that we did was obvious, PHOTOS. We took a lot before we discovered that people were doing funny things with pictures. Steve and I spent the next 20 minutes trying to do some funny poses. The final pose was inspired by the poster advertisement of Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo. We got a lot of laughs from just poses.

One thing I forgot to mention was that the Leaning Tower was not standing alone. Ride beside the tower was a really large church. It was much larger than the tower itself and looked very very nice. I wanted to go in to pray, but there was an entrance fee. No thanks. The price of going into the church was 5 Euros. I guess the city of Pisa knew that people would pay to go on the leaning tower no matter the price. And we were definitely suckers of the city as we dished out 10 euros to climb the tower. Which was much more than any other church or tower we climbed so far on the trip. The rationale behind the higher prices is sensible because only a maximum of 15-20 people can be on the tower at a time. I personally didn't think it would hurt to have 30 people on the tower. Of course, I am not civil engineer.

When you purchase your ticket to go up the Tower, you have to sign up for a time slot and also place your bags in a locker room. Once again, this makes a lot of sense. I couldn't imaging wearing my bag wakling up a leaning tower. I would topple over easier than the tower itself. Also, if everyone had a back pack, that would be equal to adding several more people. The only problem with our ticket was that our time slot was 1.5 hours away. We really didn't want to waste time on our trip, but it was for the best. The wait gave us a lot of time to find yet another place to eat Pizza and sit down and relax.

Lunch was accompanied by some live music. At first, I though the musicians were paid by the restaurant like in pubs and bars in Canada and US. But not really. As they played songs, one of the musicians would occasionally go around the crowd asking for tips or money. Steve was alway a nice guy here and tried to give them money. The funny thing was that steve had not organized the coins that he had so far during the trip and accidently threw in 1 pound, which of course is quite useless in Italy. Though the musicians didn't notice we had some good laughs about it later.

We didn't drop our bags off in the lockers before we went for lunch because we were afraid someone might steal our stuff. We would eventually find out that we couldn't even put our bags into the locker room because our bags were way too big to fit int he tiny lockers, STUPID US! The security guard told us that he would just look over the bags while we were on the tower. Though I still feared the someone would steal it, I couldn't do much about it now.

Steve and I waited at the entrance of the tower until the entire time slot group had gathered up. When the guide gave us the signal to start climbing, I was in for a surprise. Though the tower from the inside doesn't seem very crooked walking on the stairs does throw you off a bit. For a bit, you are leaning in one direction and then the other half you are leaning the other direction. I had to use the wall the entire way up to make sure that i didn't fall over.

The top didn't feel weird at all. Pisa as viewed from the top of the tower is actually quite nice and very traditional. The city/town is surrounded half by mountains that were really beautiful. After a barrage of photos, an old lady introduced herself and pointed out that she was also from Canada. We chatted for a bit before we were forced to leave the tower to allow the next group up. No matter which direction you are going on the stairs, the slant of the tower does make the journey up and down very awkward, as if you were about to fall.

After leaving the tower, we grabbed our bags and started walking towards the train station again. There really wasn't anything to see or do in Pisa other than the Tower and maybe the big church. Most of the people in Pisa were probably in the Tower region as there really isn't anything else to see or do. Thank goodness we didn't stay, and thank goodness for Steve's suggestion to visit Pisa for a few hours rather than a whole day. Our next stop would be Firenze (Florence), another suggestion from Steve.

I never really imagined myself being able to travel to Florence or Pisa for that matter. But after a 3-4 hour ride, we were in a place that I had no clue about. The only thing I had heard about Florence was the nice architecture that they had in the churchs and also other buildings. Our book had nothing about Florence at all, nor did we actually know what to look for. We walked out of the train station totally lost. All we could do was start walking with our backpacks on and just look as we walk.

The main street was lined with a lot of stores open by the locals. Within 10 minutes of walking, we saw a huge structure in front of us. I think this was the Cathedral. For a city of small houses aand buildings, this was a major highlight. The main problem with the Cathedral was that it was boxed in and surrounded by buildings that were built really close. To take a picture, you would have to walk to the corner of the street and put the camera close to the ground and point the camera up. And guess what? there was a tower at the Cathedral, however, this time, Steve and I didn't go up. There didn't seem to be anything too interesting about this one.

The entrance to the church seemed like the same as every other church we had passed by so far the trip, but this time, ti was different. Security greets you the second that you come in. There were several reasons for this. First, they had to prevent people from brining unwanted weapons or dangerous objects into the church. Second, they had to make sure that you were dressed correctly for the church. Of all the churchs I went to, this was the only one that gave people a plastic like bag. Only people that were wearing tank tops, sleeveless shirts or short shorts. I was very surprised that they did this. The people would agree to wear the white plastic sheet, which makes them stick out like a soar thumb.

Steve did his usual, do a quick browse of everything and helping me take pictures. To my surprise, for such a large Cathedral, there wasn't much to see. Art was definitely not a highlight of the Cathedral. The ceiling was nothing spectacular and the lack of any pews or chairs was unexpected. Usually churches would have atleast a few rows of pews, this time, there weren't any. Only two things really stood out, the stained glass and the altar area, both were very nice but couldn't compare to those in Rome. Even with the lack of art and things to see, there were so many tourists inside. I guess it's because of the large crowds that were inside that I lost sight of Steve after I finished looking around.

Walking from one corner to the next, to the center and then downstairs to the gift shop did not help in finding Steve at all. It was as if he just disappeared. Panic starting building in me. Maybe Steve went outside already. He does that sometimes after he is done looking at churches. I walked out the side door and didn't see Steve waiting anywhere outside. Now thinking that I was the one that actually walked out first, I sat down by the little small fence waiting to see if Steve came out. After around 5 minutes, the security told me to move a bit out of the way as I was sort of sitting in the path where people were walking. Maybe he thought I was a bum.

10 minutes passed and no Steve. Oh crap, I really hoped that we didn't get lost. This is probably the reason why Roger wanted things to be well organized so that we wouldn't lose each other. And the first day after Roger leaves, we lose each other. I walk aroudn the cathedral 2 times trying to find Steve in a street full of people. No luck. For a second time, I entered the Cathedral to double check. This time, the security stopped me at the entrance and searched my bag. He didn't find anything at the top other than some of my dirty clothing =).

A second scour of the inside was a failure. So instead of wasting my time on the inside again, I walked back outside and waited at the tower. About 10 minutes later, I saw Steve. What a guy, he was walking around the area but I can't blame him for exploring. We had our laughs about trying to find each other.

Florence really isn't a super busy city. There aren't as many things to see. But my guess is that the good things require a significant amount of travelling time to get to. Steve and I only had about 3 hours in the city and so didn't have much time to enjoy much. We walked by a few old museums that were closed and also a small church. Steve probably had enough of churches already and probably didn't find this one too interesting. There was a lot of scaffolding on the outside, but to me, it was still a place for me to visit regardless of how it looked. A priest was sitting close to the door when you walk in. The church was full of scaffolding and not much was to be seen even on the inside.

I gave a hello gesture to the priest and started walking around and then stopped for a prayer. As I was leaving, the priest signalled me to approach him. As I walked up, he opened his left hand to reveal a handful of coins of donation. At this point, I couldn't refuse even a small donation. I gave him 1 Euro (yes I am cheap). The priest asked me if I was japanese. Funny, I never ever thought that I looked like a Japanese person at all.

Most of Florence for Steve and I was more of a talking experience. As we walked we talked and talked. Thinking back to things at Ottawa and about Roger. It was surely different without Roger around. Our walking and talking would eventually bring us to a small market place that sold mainly clothing and other apparel. Most of it didn't even seem to be Italian style. You could see jeans for the Gangstas, scarves, gloves, hats, shoes, everything but Italian clothing. Even more funny was that there would be atleast 3-4 stores that sold identical merchandise, talk about competitive market.

By the time we figured that there was nothing else we could see, it was almost time to go back to the train. Our stomachs were empty. We figured that if we waited until we went to Venice to eat, it would be too late to eat dinner. There really wasn't much food around the train station. Sure, there were some fast food places inside of the station itself, but that would have costed more than we had budgetted. We eventually settled for mediocre Shawarma. Yes, we had middle eastern food for dinner. It was quite sad =).

Before we knew it, we were on the train again. We could see the sunset from the train. By the time we had reached Venice, it was all gone, leaving a dark blue and black sky, but we could still see things quite clearly. It was cold in Venice at night.

It wasn't until today that I had actually been in a city/town that is full of water. I didn't see a single road for cars. i didn't see cars or land vehicles for that matter. All I saw was water and boats. I was starting to think, how do people get around town in Venice? They surely have a transportation system like a bus, taxi or car right? Yes and no. No they dont have cars. Yes, they do have busses. But the busses are not your regular busses, they are boats instead. Yes that is right, a bus in Venice is just a boat.

Steve seemed to know all about this already and wasn't too surprised. Thank goodness that he spoke Spanish because I would have had no idea how to ask for a single use ticket to use to get around town. Anyway, we waited for our "bus" on a small dock that kept rocking up and down. After I had got on the bus/boat, I started thinking how nice and not nice Venice could be. Its nice in the fact that you travel by boat, you get the nice breeze from the water. But at the same time, I wouldn't want to be rushed to any emergency room on a boat. As we went from stop to stop, we passed by some Gondolas and a police boat. The Gondolas are as I had expected from many movies or pictures. The only thing different was that they weren't moving as slowly as they were in movies, and the person controlling the boat was not necessarily teh guys that sings.

Our stop was at in the center of the lively part of town. By the time we had arrived, it was around 9-10 pm already. There were lights on either side of the rivers and people were sittingdown, sipping wine and chatting away. One look at the price and menu of the Gelato shop showed just how expensive Venice was. Atleast in this area. Our first goal was to drop off our things at the hostel. But wait a minute, where was the hostel? We only had simple direction from the internet and none of us really understood how the streets were layed out.

We found ourselves walking through small and narrow areas which we thought wasn't right. But in fact, narrow streets are very normal in Venice due to the lack of space. We found ourselves at a t-section after walking 5 minutes. On the left, 1 restaurant was open and the rest was like a dark and shay alley. The right side was empty and dark, but you could see th water. According to our map to the hostel, the hostel was on the left of the t-section. We didn't see any sign nor was there any indication that there was a hostel around this area. We backtracked a bit and started looking on the other smaller streets to see if there was any sign about a hostel. Nothing. I was starting t get worried again. Never had we not been able to find a hostel before. If anything, the hostel should be very welcoming.

We stopped at a few places to ask about the hostel and they all said to go back to the T-section looking for an old type of bank like door. We didn't see anything. Eventually, we saw 2 people walk upt to this door that was at the T-section and open it. We walked up closer tothe door. We found our hostel. The sign was super tiney and it was not veryt visible. The door and the window to look inside was absolutely dark. It seemed like an abandoned house.

We followed the 2 people in and was greeted by the receptionist that walked out of the door on the second floor. Wow, talk about creepy service. Steve helped me pay for the hostel while I dropped our stuff off at the front entrance. The room was not prepared for use yet. Wow, for 32 Euros a night, how could they not have prepared it already?

Seeing that the night was not over yet, we did some exploration of Venice. With less than 24 hours to sight see, we had to take every opportunity to look around. Steve and I walkeda round the central area again taking in the fresh air and looking at the nice night lights of Venice. All the stores on the small streets were closed. The main streets were bright with the signs and lights from restaurants. We passed by sevearl open areas close to the river that were empty by now. But during the day, these places are full of people selling their seafood and produce.

We spent most of the night wandering around in the empty small streets and standing on a bridge watching gondolas and busses pass by. It was a very relaxing way to ending the night. Had I only wished that we would be able to see the Venice at night time a few more times.

I finished reading "Angels and Demons" before I washed up and went to bed. There were to other girls living in our room. Steve kept wondering if they were good looking or not. I think one of them was =). Better not get caught staring while they are sleeping.

Labels: eurotrip

posted by lazypig @ 3:12 PM