23 gennaio 2018
I think last night was my worst night of sleep ever! We threw in a load of laundry when we got home only to find that the shortest cycle is two hours long! It was already late and we wanted to go to bed soon, so I decided to set an alarm and wake up around 2 to switch the laundry to the dryer. Giuseppe had already done so much for me that week, I told him he was not allowed to do the laundry and to just keep sleeping.
It seemed like I had just fallen asleep when the alarm went off. I went out to the kitchen to switch the laundry, but the machine was a lot more complicated than I thought it would be. It was a two-in-one machine, so I didn't even need to take the clothes out, just turn the dryer setting on. But of course it was all written in Italian so I had to translate everything on my phone. I was getting worried because it seemed like no matter how many different button combinations I tried, the only dryer cycles I could chose from were either 15 minutes or 2 hours! I was afraid of burning our clothes because I remember the dryer at my host family's place in Grenoble was finicky and that if I left the machine on for more than 15 minutes the clothes would get to a really freaky temperature.
The bad news was that I couldn't air dry the clothes because we had to leave in the morning to catch our bus to Bologna and we didn't want to have a suitcase full of wet clothes! I chose the 15 minute cycle and decided to wait and to see if the clothes would get really hot. I started the dryer and immediately freaked out because it was SO LOUD. The light was on in the loft upstairs and I thought maybe Guido was up there trying to sleep. I thought he had said he didn't even live here, but then why would the light up there be on? It was never on before... Plus he told us not to go up there. Suspicious. I anxiously paced around the kitchen during those 15 minutes. When I pulled out the clothes after the short cycle, they weren't hot at all. In fact, it hardly seemed like they had been dried. I figured that was a good sign. I set the cycle for two hours and headed back into the bedroom to try and sleep.
I laid there for the longest time, stressing out about the loud dryer! I couldn't fall asleep, thinking of poor Guido in that loft right above the racket I had created. Just as soon as I fell asleep, the alarm woke me up to go check on the clothes again. They were pretty hot- but not Grenoble Dyer Hot- and dry, just a tad damp. I brought them into our room and laid them around. Giuseppe slept soundly through all of this. Finally I crawled back into bed, and again struggled to fall asleep, stressing about poor Guido and how I had ruined his sleep. Eventually I did fall right to sleep, but once again, just as I hit a deep slumber the alarm rang loudly, waking us up for the day. I was shocked the night had passed so quickly. I told Giuseppe about my stressful night and he assured me Guido had told us he lived somewhere else. We laughed about it.
The reason we woke up early was to go to the Galleria dell’Accademia in order to see Michelangelo's DAVID before the crowds came in. We brushed our teeth and threw on some warm clothes and left. I’m so glad we did because it wasn’t too crowded and I had such an amazing experience.
The art is incredible in that museum. I wish I remembered more from the art history class I took 5 years ago... When we walked into the main room with David, I was mesmerized. He's so TALL. He seemed so lifelike with veins and tendons and hair chiseled in the stone. It was incredible. I loved the room full of sculptures of women. They looked so powerful yet so graceful and natural. It truly was an amazing museum, probably my favorite. It was such a peaceful way to start the day, and the excitement of it all gave me all the energy I needed.
After getting ready and checking out of the Airbnb we went to the outdoor market again. I saw a really pretty purse and of course when the sales guy from Bangladesh saw me glancing at it he used all of his gimmicks to get me to buy it. I really HATE that environment. I feel so bad for these foreigners who look so poverty-stricken and I can't help but imagine their starving families back home (is that even the case? I don’t know) and I feel so terrible not buying their products.
He offered the bag for 45 euro after “giving me so many special discounts” and I thought it was a fair price. It really did seem to be real leather and it was a larger purse. But it wasn't good enough for Giuseppe. He loves to haggle and he eventually got it down to 25 euro! I honestly felt really terrible paying that low. The poor Bangladesh man can't feed his family on such a small profit! It makes me cringe thinking about it.
We left the market and went to the Lindt café again for another cup of thick, gooey hot chocolate.
We walked past a retail store and Giuseppe, being the savvy retail man that he is, wanted to compare the leather jackets here to the ones we had looked at the other day at the market. He fell in love with a caramel colored sheep leather jacket that fit him perfectly and was much softer and sturdier than the one he had tried on the day before. Turns out the store owner is a legit leather guy with stores all over the world and the price of the jacket (no haggling here) was over half the price of the jacket from the market. Apparently those market guys REALLY rip people off. I was surprised because he seemed so trustworthy! I am very naïve when it comes to the retail world. Good thing Giuseppe's not. Anyway, we ended up BUYING the jacket... It really is an amazing jacket and it will probably change his life, right? The owner also confirmed that my purse is in fact real leather. Score!
Anyway, after all this we had to catch our bus to Bologna. Leaving Florence was sad! It's definitely a city to revisit.
When we arrived in Bologna we walked around the city in search of a place to eat. I was starving. Giuseppe kept vetoing every restaurant we passed for some reason or another and I was getting extremely hangry. I finally told him I'd had enough with his pickiness and walked into the next restaurant we passed. I told him I would be eating there with or without him.
It was a really modern pasta bar, it looked like something that would be popular in Utah with it's bright white walls, wooden furniture, and industrial lighting. We went upstairs to find a table and wait for our buzzer to go off. We sat down at a 4- person table because it had a nice leather couch. Shortly after we sat down, another couple came over and sat on the couch across us. A server came over to investigate “what was wrong” and Giuseppe had to explain to her repeatedly that we didn’t mind sharing a large table with strangers. We ended up chatting with these strangers for over an hour and became good friends! They are a couple from Brazil and long into the conversation we found out that they had gotten engaged TWO hours earlier!! They were such neat people, we loved getting to know them and more about their culture and their perceptions of Europe. They also shared their authentic pão de queijo recipe with us!
Checking into our Airbnb was the BIGGEST letdown. So far we have been really lucky with awesome Airbnb’s but this was not the case. Our host Pierre was super friendly, but his place was awful. It reeked of cigarette smoke. He had the most annoying, yapping dog. The place was worn down, our bedroom door was slightly off the hinges and needed full body strength to scrape it across the floor to close it. The bed was thin and lumpy with paper thin, yellowing sheets. And it was messy! Our room was fine, but our shared bathroom was cluttered with dirty towels, half empty bottles of product, and hair. There was mold on the ceiling too. He and all his friends were in the secret, curtained off living room smoking and being really loud. I HATED it. Living in someone else’s filth is a nightmare.
I was mad because all the reviews for this place were awesome and I’ve come to expect a certain level of cleanliness from Airbnb. I had to talk myself into a little attitude adjustment. It was too late to do anything about it, so I reminded myself how lucky I was to be traveling and that we would hardly be in there anyway and that this would make us all the more grateful in the future when we can afford to stay at nice places. Giuseppe had a really good attitude about it, so I could too.
We left for dinner quickly and eventually ended up at a pizza restaurant. It was a really pretty, nice looking restaurant but NOBODY was there! We were shown to a table but waited a long time for a server. When Giuseppe asked him (in Italian) how he was doing, he said something I could tell was negative. I was confused and when he left, Giuseppe said the waiter had said he was bad, but then quickly said he was kidding... but it didn’t sound like it. After that we felt very intrusive. It was so lifeless in the restaurant, we asked them if they could put on music and light the candle at our table. Our pizza, however, was amazing. Probably the best yet. And so cheap!
Afterwards we walked through the city. Bologna is more modern than Florence or Rome, with lots and lots of shopping. The reason we went to Bologna was because it was one of Giuseppe’s favorite cities he served in AND it’s the birthplace of a lot of Italian dishes, like lasagna and tortellini and ragù.
We ended the night with a trip to a Gelatoria. The gelato wasn't that great, but we had the best time talking and laughing. I asked Giuseppe what kind of book he would write if he had to, and he came up with the most generic, cheesy love story that he’d call, “The Lost City of My Heart” hahahaha so hideous. We were laughing so hard!
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