2 trains, a bus, a taxi, a mall...firenze

So Tristan and I decided to go to Florence for the day today to visit "the Mall," which is a designer outlet 45 min to an hour outside the city proper. We went to the train station on Friday to buy our tickets only to find out the 6:30am train was booked and the next best option was a 9am train that wasn't Eurostar (so it would take 4 hours instead of 2 1/2). The bus schedule to the shopping center seemed to work with the train arrival time, and having no other choice, we hopped the 9am train.

The train seemed to take forever, but we finally got in at 10 til 1 and went to the bus station. The ever so slightly surly ticket office man let us know the 1:30 bus pretty much didn't exist so we could take the 3pm bus. That worked fine, since we figured we could get to the outlets by 4, stay til 6:30, and be back in time for our 7:50 train. Once we got on the bus, an even surlier man let us know there was only a bus at 5 and another at 7. The 5 was too early, the 7 too late, but we had to pick the 5 in order to make the train. And after a beautiful bus ride 45 minutes into Tuscany, we arrived at "the Mall," which was full of beautiful stores and beautiful people. Since we thought we only had an hour, we pretty much flew through the 20 different stores. Everything was gorgeous and although I could've bought pretty much 1 of everything, I stuck with just one dress purchase before we reconvened to catch the bus. 10 minutes before the bus was supposed to come, Tristan jogged to the Diesel store and came out a few minutes after 5. To find me hanging out. Waiting for the bus. Which ended up not coming. Because it was Saturday.

So, pretty much before you could say "Jenny, stop having a panic attack," two Italian girls who were on our train and also needed to get back roped us into taking a taxi with them back to Florence. There was also a Japanese girl who claimed to speak English but no Italian, so Tristan and I had to try and catch the Italian spoken by the 2 girls/the driver and translate for her, which was an adventure. About 5 minutes into the ride, I realized the road we were taking looked nothing like the one we took to get to the outlets. Again before I could stress too much, the Italian girls explained that they'd asked the driver to take the scenic route. And scenic it was...so many hills dotted with picturesque villas and then when we rounded a bend, you could see the entire city of Florence from the hills. You could spot the Duomo and see pretty much everything, which made it worth the 10 euro price tag.

The driver let us off by the Duomo, which made the second time I'd seen it that day, since Tristan and I pretty much jogged into the city proper from 1 to 2:15 between when we arrived and when our bus was set to leave (so he could return a shirt he'd bought there during the second 10 day break and so I could buy earrings on the Ponte Vecchio). Tristan went to the Diesel store in the city and I went into a department store, where I forced myself to avoid the super serious designer sections but still ended up finding 2 cute skirts and a jacket. I met up with Tristan at Zara and we got gelato and then headed back towards the train station since I'm kind of obsessive about being on time for trains (plus, after literally running around the city, we were tired!). We got McDonalds, because there was really nothing close to the train station and it was easy (culture police, keep your mouths shut...we come home in a week anyways, it's not like we haven't tried pretty much everything Italy has to offer, food-wise!).

The train back was pretty uneventful and empty, but it stopped for good in Venice-Mestre (mainland) instead of Venice-Santa Lucia (island) so we had to hang out on the platforms waiting for 20 minutes for a train to Santa Lucia. Somewhere between buying myself some candy and Tristan a soda, I lost my house key, which is terrible since it means I will lose my 50 euro deposit, they might have to re-key the whole house, and I won't be able to come and go as I please for the next 5 days. I cannot believe I went 4 months and didn't lose it only to misplace it 5 days before I leave...but oh well. It was an expensive but ridiculously fun/adventurous day, so I can't complain!

ps-I should mention I've been to Florence before in high school and did the museum/church thing, so I didn't feel guilty for shopping this time around!