Florence

Monday, 29th October 2007. We took the train from Rome to Florence. It was a 3 hour trip. Florence used to be the capital of Italy in the 19th century. The city centre is a World Heritage site, and has a massive church called the Santa Maria del Fiore, also known as the Duomo:

It took 140 years to build!

At the front and sides of the church were African vendors selling fake leather bags. If a police came one vendor would alert the other and they would only take a few minutes to pack everything and run!

The streets of Florence, like Rome (or any Italian city) are very narrow:


So more people invest in motorbikes, mini lorries and smart cars...


An electric car. Note the power plug at the lower side, it's being charged!

On Halloween's (31st October) I decided to take a walk around the city without looking at the map. Night came and I decided to check the map, feeling excited and worried at the same time because I couldn't find where I was! What if I wandered off the map? It was only when I walked into this piazza...
Did I find myself again! The Basilica di Santa Croce, a Francescan church, sponsored by rich families during the middle ages for its construction. I felt so relieved and quite mad at myself for not checking where I should go first on the map. Then I walked into this narrow street and saw this:

A Halloween party! It was so nicely decorated I was a bit shy to go inside because it might be reserved for guests. But then I stepped in...


There was a lovely bar inside, and the bartenders had witches' hats on! One of the workers told me that the party would start at 7pm and it was free! So I stayed around, waiting for 7pm to come and taking more photos

Pumpkin used for the lighting feature

7pm came and nobody was there! I waited for 20 minutes more but still no one came. A group of kids dressed as witches, mummies and ghosts came in, had a look around and came out with their mouths full of sandwiches. I gave up and started walking back to the Hostel. When I got to the Duomo, I realised I haven't changed my hand phone time to one hour ahead because of daylight savings! D'oh!

Still was a very festive Halloween experience. I love pumpkin lanterns!

Vatican City

This is the smallest country in the world, as big as 6 football fields. I went there a few times during the trip, the first time I went the pope was speaking:

Pic by Cherry

The pope here is like a celebrity, the people LOVE him. St Peter's square felt like a football match, people were waving flags and banners, cheering for everything Benedict said. The German dudes I met in the Hostel said that when Benedict was elected as pope one German newspaper had a headline saying "We are the pope" (Benedict is German).

On my second visit I went inside the St Peter's Church:

When I looked up...



This sculpture is made of marble. I'm amazed at how they can make the clothing look so real , especially when marble is such a hard material to sculpt.

I wanted to go to the top of St Peter's that day, but it closed while I was in the queue! Doh! So I came back again the day after, took the elevator up and saw this:


and climbed these spiral stairs:


And narrow slanting passageways:

It was getting dark when I reached the top. I stayed there drinking in the awesome view until closing time.




By the time I left Vatican City it looked like this:


My Darling Italy, you are beautiful. Despite all the inefficiency and racism in you I can't help but think of coming back to see you again. Especially your architecture! It makes the Parliament house and Art Gallery look like cheap imitations.

Italy is NOT a developed country

• It takes two years just to get a building permit.

• The government has too many people employed in it. Some government posts are unnecessary, but the people in these posts say, "Ah, but that's how we get paid". So unnecessary posts slow down the system, also costing the taxpayers their precious Euros.

• The people are generally not civic minded. The drivers park their cars on road corners, on pedestrian crossings and block cars parked in legal parking areas. Most pedestrian crossings in Rome don't have signal lights, so you cross the street and hope that some kind soul of a driver stops for you, which doesn't happen because most Roman drivers are soulless monsters (haha, pls don't take this literally).
  

• As a result of the above, people get hit by cars all the time. Even the sidewalk isn't safe, there was an article on the news about someone who got killed by a car that drove up onto the sidewalk. That's why you hear ambulances all the time, and they take ages to reach the hospital because of bad roads.
  

• Art is more appreciated than practicality. You get beautiful water taps that don't work.

• My experience at the airport (Grrr! Will elaborate on the next post)
  

Florence to Rome: Train Ride

Last thursday I was taking the train from Florence back to Rome and my huge luggage bag occupied 3 seats! The train started filling up with people and suddenly, mom called. While chatting on my mobile, someone asked if they could sit next to me and I nodded. Then I looked up and saw 3 girls stealing my bag! But then I realised they were only trying to lift my massive bag up into the luggage compartment above so they could occupy the seats! At the same time they were giggling and commenting how heavy my bag was! I was about to help them but my bag was already stowed safely away and I could only say "Thank you very much!" They giggled in return and one of them said "That's ok!" And I made 3 new friends that day =D

I couldn't remember all their names so I gave them nicknames: Miss Personality, Lollipop and Sophisticated Lady. Miss Personality was the friendliest of the lot; she wore thick framed glasses and had a big, goofy smile. She's 18 years old, about to enter uni and speaks English, Spanish, Italian, French and Hungarian! Lollipop was the sweetest among the three (hence her nickname), and her name was the only one I could remember out of the three girls' names because it was easy to remember; Maria-Julia. She was studying for a test, reading and highlighting from a textbook about two famous poets in Italy. One of the poets was very poor; when he was little, he had a mother who wished all her kids would die because she reckoned they'd be happier in Heaven. The other poet was a womaniser, flirted with a woman who fell in love with him, then went for another. Maria didn't talk about what happened in the end when the first woman found out, she just told me, "Don't be like this guy. He's horrible!"

Miss Sophisticated Lady was blonde, looked like a supermodel and was from Stuttgart, Germany. She was the quietest of the lot, but she did have cool clothes. In the end, we reached Rome, took photos (Miss Personality wasn't there though, she had gotten off earlier at another stop) and Maria exchanged hugs and told me that by fate, we might meet on the train again someday. Wished I'd gotten her email. D'oh!


Left to right: Me, Maria Julia and German supermodel