Today feels like it was the longest day of my life.
It
started with the usual breakfast. I woke up early since we were planning to
leave for Florence by 9. I ate and got ready and we walked off to Piazza
Gramsci where we waited for the next Rapida bus to Florence. There are two
types of buses from Siena to Florence and vice versa, the Ordinaria and the
Rapida. I’ve never actually taken the Ordinaria, but it has more stops than the
Rapida and is therefore slower. I guess it was once called the Semplice which
obviously cause a lot of confusion because people thought it was the simpler bus, when really it was a bit more complicated.
When we
finally got on the bus, we sat down and watched the others seats fill up.
People just kept coming on and eventually there were about 10 people standing
in the aisles and by the doors. I was super annoyed because directly above my
head was some guy's elbow hovering as he held onto the overhead storage area and
to my right some girl was using my armrest as her seat. I thought when the bus
driver got on he would tell them all this was obviously a safety violation and
shoo them away, but instead he sat down and we drove off to Florence. They
stood the entire hour and a half drive there. Sheesh.
When we
got to The Uffizi, we knew we would have to wait in line. Our guess was it
would take an hour and a half to get through it. Slowly the minutes ticked by
and we put up with the loud girls behind us, the
smoke being blown in our faces and the numerous couples making out. We were
pretty patient until it had been about two and a half hours, an hour over our
projected time, and we still weren’t very close. I tried to think about other
things and distract myself by watching a little boy play with his brother. He
was just so cute, as all Italian babies are. That worked for a while. We got
up to the doors and waited until they let our group of people in. We thought it
would take about 15 minutes based on our experience. Not so. I think we stood
there for an hour. I have no idea why. So yeah, we waited 4 hours to get into The
Uffizi… It was torture at its finest. And before you go telling me you can make
reservations, I know already, but for various reasons we were not able to make
them.
It was
beautiful inside The Uffizi. My personal favorites were the Botticelli
paintings: their beauty and sadness, life and emptiness, flatness and depth.
The contrast calls out to me and invites me to ponder.
Second favorite was Michelangelo’s The Holy
Family which seemed to give off its own glow in the vivid colored, perfectly smooth and
musculature bodies.
By the
time we made it out of the museum, we were tired and ready to go home so we
hitched the next Rapida bus to Siena. I slept most of the way despite the loud
cackling of teenagers in the back. We rushed home just in time for Fiorella to
offer us dinner. Prosciutto, salami, parmesan, cream cheese, bread, and honey. I
ate it all and then for dessert some pane co' santi and fruit. With my tummy full
and a hot shower taken, I ended the night in happiness that the long day was
over.