My first Travelling Experience

The weekend started off a little disappointing. We had plans for a small trip on Friday and it rained and ruined our day, as it did all day Saturday. But we adjusted we went out rented a movie, grabbed a bottle of wine and Saturday was redeemed. Sunday was going to be our big day this weekend. We had plans to go on the school trip to the beach!

My roommate Maria and I woke up early and left to meet with everybody. Low and behold on our way to the train station we got lost. All of a sudden it was after eight, so we knew we had missed our train. Maria asked "Well, what do we do now?" I thought for a second and said, "Go to the station and get on the next train." Hmm, that sounds like a great idea, two American students who don't speak Italian are going to jump on the next train to a city they've never been. But, hey, we are in Italy, why not?

So we finally (after an hour and a half of walking) reached the train station in Florence. We bought our tickets, which was a little confusing, but we found our way to the train. We rode for an hour and a half and reached our destination of Viareggio! We jumped off the train, in our swimsuits and cover-ups and went in search of a map. We found a tourist information site and the women, who spoke English, gave us directions and a map.

We grabbed a taxi and headed to the beach. At first, we were just overwhelmed with the beauty. We were standing on the beach of the Ligurian Sea and looking at the Northern Appennines. But it was only 1030 and still quite cold. So we sat for a while, then grabbed some lunch. After our early lunch the sun came out and we ran directly to the beach. We went swimming in the Ligurian Sea! There was a wicked current so we didn't stay long, but the water was warm and the view was perfect. Then Maria and I went to our chairs to dry off and relax. An hour passed and we were both enthralled in our own thing, me in my Newsweek, her in her Ipod. When we looked up there were some nasty clouds that looked pretty big headed our way. So we started walking to the train station.

We walked the three miles back to the station with only a few drops of rain, bought our tickets and jumped back on a train. We didn't know if it was the right one, it was the right number but it didn't have any signs or postings. But we were tired from the day and we fell asleep. We woke up, both a little panicked that we were on the wrong train, but after about 30 minutes we saw the Firenze sign.

Our big adventure ended at an American sports bar in Florence, where we had cheeseburgers (I know how to order in English!) and watched the end of the Packer game. Aaron Rodgers is looking pretty good!

It was a great trip and we were both very excited we didn't quit when we were lost. We decided we make a pretty good team--minus our lack of map reading skills early in the morning.