Saturday - Moving Day

and I moved from Lyon France to Florence Italy.  And I was so pleased with myself starting out.  I had called the woman who did what little got done concerning my lodging in their "apaartment" to ask her to please reserve a taxi for me on Saturday morning to go to the train station.  So that went absolutely brilliantly - I had just got my big piece of luggage down to the entry way and there was the taxi so I waved to wait and went and got the smaller piece, left their key in the mailbox without a lock as they instructed and off we went.  He had to drop me off outside the area surrounding the station because taxis are not allowed to go any further.  But it was a relatively easy haul into the station and right there in front of me were 3 security guards.  So I got the one closest to me to tell me about how to get to my train once it was posted on the departures board.  He did a very thorough job of it, leaving me feeling capable of doing it and so I went and got a bite of breakfast and pretty soon, up to the track I went.  The train came,

I got on (with someone lifting my suitcase onto the train) and off we went.  It was a very pleasant and quiet trip.  I went at one point to the "club car" to get a munchy and a Coke and asked him if he knew the name of or how long was the tunnel we had just finished coming through.  It took a bit for me to get him to understand I didn't want to know how long it would be before we arrived, but once he understood what I was asking, he got curious too and poked around here and there on his phone and finally found the name of the tunnel - Tunnel Ferjus - and when I got settled in tonight I was finally able to look it up and it is 8-1/2 MILES long!!!  I figured maybe 2 miles cause it was  a lot longer than one I had experienced a couple days earlier when I figured it was 1 mile long.  So some tunnel, huh?  Somewhere in it is the border between France and Italy which is kind of neat.  You go in from Mondane (very French sounding) and come ut in Bardonecchia (obviously an Italian name).  So that was fun.  

We finally got to Milan Garibaldi Station and I was assisted in getting to the train which was great but that train was insanely crowded. 

It was a shorter run but more boring.  And from Garibaldi I took the train to Santa Maria Novella, the station in Florence and that was pretty boring also because we were almost always in tunnels.

And of course, in 2 years, things had changed at SMN.  I finally managed to recognize it somewhat but I am going to have to find out where they sell bus tickets to other places now because one of the places I remember them doing it is no more.  And then came the search for my hotel which by then my phone was fairly low on power and I wanted to get the kind of map that tells you the route rather than following you (which uses large amounts of data)  I had used that pretty much everywhere I went in Lyon and I could not get one to come up in Florence.  So I wandered down the street I remembered being at the start of the map I had looked at a long time ago, thinking I sort of knew where the hotel was, and it just turned into one horrendous mess.  We had arrived at 4:20 or so and by the time I finally reached my hotel, it was after six.  I unpacked all my dirty clothes for a laundry pile, picked out what I would wear after my shower and went to the shower.  Turned the water on and it didn't get hot.  I felt like it sort of seemed warmish but that was it and then it just got colder and colder.  I thought "okay, maybe try turning the other way" so did and to me it seemed even colder although then by the time I switched back to the other direction it was quite frigid but I had to continue cause there I was.  So with much gasping and yelping, I got myself washed but I drew the line at a shampoo where I would have to be directly under the spray pretty much the whole time.

I reported it after I was dressed and eventually someone came up and tried it and of course it pretty much instantly turned hot and he said you have to turn this way for hot and I said that's the way I turned.  But apparently there is a little invisible blue and invisible red mark on the "crystal" type faucet see and I had had it turned to the blue.  Good grief!

But everything ended well enough.  I asked the desk man to recommend a nearby restaurant because I didn't want to go to my very favorite one when I wasn't in tip top shape.  So he did and I went and it was nice because it was very Italian and there was an Italian family I think celebrating maybe an engagement between a young man and a girl and they ordered one of the Florentine steaks that Florence is famous for and had much discussion with the waiter about it.

During all this I noticed that another single woman came in after I did and sat at the table after mine.  I had order a 1/4 liter of wine rather than a glass (I needed it, OK?) and could probably have finished but didn't need to so I finally decided (after hearing her say "not quite") to the waiter that I would ask her if she would like me to top off her glass of wine.  I went to her table and did that and she said "why don't I come over to your table?"  And I said that would be great and it was.  She lives in Canada, we both seemed to have a lot to say to each other, she has traveled way more extensively than I have and usually with her husband, but this time she's taking a pottery class for a week and he opted out.  So we talked and talked (a lot about the state of America and Canada) and it was just real pleasant.  I asked how long her class was and she said it ends Oct 5.  I told her that if she felt like it, give me a call or text when she's back and we could get together and she could tell me all about it and she seemed to think that would be great.  I did tell her not to feel she had to but if she wanted to have show and tell then good.

And I'm in bed writing all of this and there is not a single picture and I'm sorry about that but I wanted to get the tunnel memory and the nice visit memory recorded before I forget them. :)]

Good night from and ciao from Italy!

And now it's Sunday and I've put in two dumb pictures (above) and 1 exciting video which I saved for last to reward anyone who has slogged through this blah,blah,blah.  I took it while going through the Roman Museum back in Lyon because it is so incredible and fun.  In the blog post about the museum I put in a couple pictures of the model the museum has displayed showing both of the Roman arenas as they were "back in the day".  Then I found this!  It is a replica of the interior of an arena used for theater work and shows how they raised and lowered the buttons.  And you get to press the buttons!!!  I tried doing both - holding the camera with one hand and reaching with the other to press the buttons which was unsatisfactory for sure.  Then providence sent 2 young men my way and I told them about how this worked and that I wanted to get a video of it and would they mind taking the video while I pressed the buttons.  So, let's give it a try...I certainly had my daughter-in-law, Maggie, in mind when I got this. :) And, phooey - it's not working, I may try and find out how to make it work but not right now.  What it does is show that they brought the curtain UP from below to close the stage and then lowered it back down for the next scene.  Amazing!