Going to Florence? Maybe.. yeah okay why not

On our field trip on Tuesday, Emily tried to point out the ridiculousness that is inherently part of the program here.

“You guys. We’re sitting next to an ancient temple, eating lunch of hollow bread while we look over the most beautiful view of the seacoast.. and tell pirate jokes.”

We were at the hilltop site of Cosa, a word which happily enough means “what?” in Italian, leading into a great many “who’s on first” type jokes if you ever tell an Italian that is where you plan to go. Cosa was a colony of Rome which was eventually ended when it was sacked by pirates.

But how did the pirates scale the wall? I asked this question in earnest but the others thought I was setting up my next joke.

The Cosa trip was fabulous, not least because I got to swim in the Mediterranean Sea for the first time after we were done exploring the hilltop.

The rest of the week was brutal, if by brutal I mean we went on field trips every day. This is only brutal in the capacity that you do a lot of walking and looking and have less time than usual to complete the little things we do on the side like Latin or Greek, or Italian for that matter. At the same time, projects are starting to pop up here and there, so extra work is coming along the way all the while.

Simultaneous to this is “free museum weekend” in Florence, this weekend in fact. A large group has already left on the EuroStar train for Florence. Why, you may wonder, did I not go with them? Because I’m a stubborn girl who doesn’t like to make decisions, mostly.

I have become convinced that no train in Italy really requires booking in advance. And hostels either. We’ll see how this works out. I’ll be flying by the seat of my pants, so to speak. Taking the slow train because I want to be difficult—I mean, different, plus I’m cheap and willing to spend an extra hour or so looking at scenery to save like twenty euro.

Hope today’s bus strike is over early tomorrow morning! How else will I get to Termini station?