9/21: Firenze

I slept through most of the train ride, but they had us in those coachettes with 6 bunk beds. It was a little crammed and the train got really hot when we stopped moving and no air came in. I swear we spent at least an hour in the verona train station at like 5 a.m., but all I could hear was an automated voice reading off train numbers in Italian. That did get me pretty excited to finally be in Italy. Then we moved into our pensiones. I'm in Savonarola, which is big and connected to another pensione, Hotel Pallacio. So there's a lot of GIF kids living here...I call it the C/M of Florence, or Ci Emme if you will. I like it a lot so far. Our host is a young man named Mateo who seems pretty cool. He hung out with Matt and I for a while today and read my Maxim magazine. Our room's pretty big, but the bathroom's bizzare. The toilet is literally in the shower. When you take a shower, the entire bathroom fills up w/ water. And you could literally use the toilet while taking a shower. Miller loves it. We took a quick tour of the city this evening. How beautiful. The Duomo took my breath away. Just walking through the city, I get this powerful feeling of how special this place is, both culturally and historically. I can't wait to explore it more.