A Nerds-eye view of Venice Italy Day 8
Actually this should be listed as Florence rather than Venice. I woke up in the morning and hopped on a train to Florence. I find it surreal how close everything is together. Living in California I always assume major cities are at least a few hours apart, but the train ride was only two hours.
If I were to pick a single element that was my favorite about my trip to Italy it is going to be hard to find something greater than riding on the trains. So far EVERY train trip I have taken has resulted in me interacting with one or more very attractive young ladies. The ride out was particularly nice as I met four very cute, very smart South African engineering students (hot engineers? What are they putting in the water down there). They didn’t have assaigned seats and I was kind of lost trying to find mine, so I spent the whole trip in between two cars chatting with them, mostly about the differences between America and South Africa. Most of their impressions about the USA comes from movies, so they sort of had it right and sort of really had it wrong. They were all very friendly and charming.
The trip home was less impressive. There was a drop dead gorgeous girl sitting next to me for a couple stops but either she didn’t speak any English or didn’t want to talk to me. Still, usually when I ride the train back home I get some creepy homeless guy telling me how the government is putting stuff in our food.
Next time I come to Europe I might have to get one of those train passes and just travel from country to country, chatting up all the people I meet since that is where I actually seem to be capable of talking to folks. I’m sure no one has ever thought of doing that in the history of European vacations.
Anyway, Florence was extremely nice. You couldn’t turn a corner without seeing another amazing cathedral or bank of statues (most of which were plagued with man-junk, if you know what I mean). I went into a couple and spent some time just sitting starring at the amazing stained glass windows and paintings. Truly moving.
The other thing Florence has going on is it is another shopping nightmare. The section I was in was a mashup of every mall, strip mall, and never ending swap meet I have ever been to. I saw a lot of US stores, a lot of international stores, and a lot of crappy t-shirt stands selling pretty much the same shirts as every other one.
That’s not necessarily true. I found one t-shirt shop that actually had a t-shirt I liked a lot. I bought one for me and one for my friend John. I think he will dig it. 
They also had an extensive selection of rock t-shirts. Mostly classic rock stuff like Dark Side of the Moon here from our music t-shirt category. While most of this doesn’t do anything for me (Ramones and Misfits is the limit) at least they had something cool for a change. There is a “LOL” shirt out here that is so awful that whenever I see it (at every place that sells t-shirts in Venice) I want to start punching every Italian I see in the face until I randomly get the guy responsible for it.
That’s not really true. I love the Italian people. If I could find that one guy, however, he might have a close encounter of the fist kind in his future.
Anyway, the Italians here are not especially friendly. Not unfriendly, just not that cool. I think my experience here and in Venice is pretty much what happens when locals have to deal with tourists too much. I grew up in a tourist town and we hated them. The friendliest people I have met were in Paduva, which doesn’t seem to get a lot of tourists. Next time I come here I will spend more time away from tourist areas.
Actually, the friendliest people I have met are tourists from other countries. I never tire to talking to anyone from any other country, and for the most part they seem interested in talking to me. I find that very refreshing. I have noticed something else weird here. Whenever two groups of Americans run into each other they seem to want to hang out, talk about what state and town they are from, and hang out in ways they would never do back home. I am honestly trying to avoid talking to Americans as much as possible. I talk to them all the time back home, and will again soon.
At one point I started playing a game I like. You see I have an unusual body proportion. I am very tall, but most of my height comes from my torso. I also have very broad shoulders but am otherwise of normal size for my height. What this does is makes it almost impossible to find jackets that actually fit. I started looking around for a leather jacket. I frustrated two shopkeepers (they do this weird thing where they set up a swap meet booth for leather 10 feet outside their store door) but then the third guy actually had a nice sheepskin jacket that fit me. I had the remainder of my bonus burning a hole in my pocket (plus have managed to do this trip nicely under the budget I set for myself) so after talking him down to 1/3 of his asking price (I’m pretty sure I still got ripped off) have a nice new jacket for when I get home.
Train back, dinner in Venice. I am really getting comfortable with both the area I am staying in and ordering food in something resembling Italiano. It’s fun. I’ve also stopped looking for a plate to put oil and vinegar on to soak my bread in. That is something they don’t really do here, and after the three days with the rest of the sales force I have been trying to not look like an ugly American.
That’s it for now. Today looks to be a very lazy Sunday. I am going to wander around a little looking for some nice gifts for my friends. By the way, I picked up the book the Hunger Games and am already hooked. Really well done.
Thanks for reading. One more post, probably while I am killing time at the airport, and then a wrap up one. If I get bored tonight I will finally get that last movie review done. By the way, I was extremely gratified to see that horrible movie Rock of Ages failed miserably. The trailers not only made me want to not see that movie (which I will, unfortunately) but never see another movie again. It’s moments like this that I love you, America.
Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Have a comment about Italy or anything in this post? Feel free to comment below. Have a specific off topic question or suggestion? Email me at [email protected]. Thanks again. Talk to you soon.
Dave
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