Off to Florence by way of Pisa: day 11

An American breakfast was in order for today before our next adventure. With all the talk of Jim, his breakfast meals came to mind. We threw on our backpacks ( I think I'm getting stronger because I can lift it and throw it on with one hand!) and we found a little place around the corner from my room, passing by the old man with lemons ( did I mentioned he lured us with lemons?)  and set down to our ' American breakfast': cappuccino, cold ham with a slice of cheese, orange yoked eggs, huge bacon, all accompanied with mayonnaise, ketchup and bread. The eggs were wonderful! We sat next to two hysterical people from Seattle named Donnie and Ross. A delightful couple who lived near Rick Steves and we entertain them with our tales of the Cinque Terre hike and they were so funny.... A standup comedic act! Our conversation left us feeling happy.

We walked toward the train station and were blown away by the amazing day. The water was still, turquoise, and peaceful. The sun was radiant and we hesitated to leave, but we had enjoyed this area and now it was time to move on.

We easily found the train to Florence and waited only a few minutes before we headed off. Pisa was on our route and Mackenzie use the #Mapsme app to find the station closest to the leaning Tower and we hopped off. We walked ten minutes and there we were. That tower really was leaning and quite interesting, but the best part of Pisa was people watching.

 When we arrived, the grass area was full of people and there were signs all over saying "Keep off the grass" ...in Italian of course. Suddenly whistles started to blow and the polizia shouted and no one moved. It took 10 minutes to finally get people to react. Then we watched,  and participated in, the photo shoot to ' hold up the tower '. EVERYONE  was doing it and taking Selfies and we got lots of pictures of other people taking selfies. Our backpacks were weighing us down so we couldn't climb into the tower so we headed back to our ride to Firenze (Florence).  We met a really nice family from Colorado at the station and chatted about Italy...although they were way out of our league. They actually stayed in places with Wi-Fi, air-conditioning, and private bathroom every night!

The Air B&B had changed our reservation, but still had a place for us to stay. Marina and Lena, mother and daughter, had given  us directions from the train via the bus. It took about five minutes to figure out the bus system and we managed to find the correct bus and just climbed on board without paying because to pay, one had to enter the front of the bus and once on, moving was not possible...and again, no one checks tickets here.

We met Marina and her 80-year-old mother, Lena, at the bus stop and we walked a few minutes to our apartment, which we found out later was shared by Marina. First let me say that these were two of the nicest people we had met so far. The apartment was about a 20 minute walk from downtown in a maybe middle-class area.  Marina was so funny and explained to us in Italian:

"The bathroom sink is clogged, you have to wait 10 minutes to reflush the toilet, the badet doesn't work but it is right in front of the toilet, so you must sit sideways to use the toilet, we have lots of mosquitoes so keep these repellents lit, we don't lock our  doors, your bedroom door only locks from the outside,  help yourself to anything in the refrigerator, theWi-Fi doesn't work, capice?"

After saying that, she and her mom satt at the kitchen table and talked for 30 minutes and then made us Italian coffee. It wasn't the best place we had stayed, and certainly not the worst, (as we were to find out in Venice) but seriously after talking with these two women during our time in Florence, I'd stay there again. And the mother loved Mackenzie and invited us both to her home in Sardinia.

It was around 5 PM (doesn't get dark until 10) when we left to explore Florence and we managed to see very little of the sites, only the local culture. We found a Wi-Fi place that offered a drink and an appetizer buffet for seven euro, so we sat down, ordered a Bellini, grab some food and posted one of our blogs. This was the first time  in Italy that we had bad food and a bad drink. Florence wasn't looking too great.

 Passing a Chinese restaurant, we thought looked good, so we sat down, ordered a huge bottle of water  (towash down the last food) and ordered. Tip of the Day: do not order Chinese food in Florence. Seriously the worst we ever tasted and we had wasted our euros!

Exhausted and still hungry, we walked 30 minutes home in the almost dark and entered a pitch black apartment that wasn't locked (because they don't lock doors here) and we heard someone across the small hallway from us. We realize later that we had missed in the all Italian introduction that Marina lived in the apartment as well.

As we lay cowardly under our sheets, I said, "I'll keep the first watch, Mackenzie! "

 She replied, "Drop a pin on the #mapsme app and send it to Marguerite, Madeleine, and Jesse so they will know our last coordinates before we are 'Taken'!

It was one of the best sleeps of the trip and we didn't wake until almost 10 o'clock.

 Tips of the day: bad food isn't worth free Wi-Fi. The Mapsme app is necessary in every country thank you to Sean!