It's All Relative

The Tale of the Attacking Gypsy Boy....

The past two days have been really funny. Let me tell some funny stories that will surely go down in the books as Good Times in Europe....

First, we left Rome yesterday. As we were walking to the train station, we stopped to buy some fruit from this guy on the side of the road. I bought some nectarines. They were pretty good. My Dad would be proud. Anyways, as we continued our walk down the Piazza de Repubblica, we noticed this unfortunate looking family of a mother and her three kids- a girl about 8 years old and a boy about 6. The mother was pushing a stroller with a baby inside. They looked pretty shabby. So anyways, we are walking along and pass this family and then out of nowhere the son starts, kicking Michelle. He is literally trying to trip her. Then he ran away, but only to coming running back to her and swiping at her bag of fruit. He totally ripped open her bag!!! He was trying to steal it!!! We are all like, "what is going on?" So this kid doesn't let up. He keeps running up behind each of us, trying to grab our bags of fruit!!! He hadn't got to me until all of a sudden I hear Michelle yell, " Brianne! Look out!!!" So I look behind me and see this child sprinting up beside me. I totally screamed as he darts at my bag, like a pro, and rips it open!! Luckily, I held on to my fruit, but it was so scary!! The funny thing was was that his mother was doing nothing about it. She just kept strolling along. Actually, she started yelling at the boy and we think its because he failed at strealing the fruit. We were all just like "Did that actually happen??" And yes, yes it did. We were histerical once we got on the train, because it really was quite a scene....
Ok, then we got to Venice. Venice was so perfect. We weren't there too long, just long enough to walk around a little and go to San Marco Square. The pigeons there are so gross. There's thousands of them, just pecking around. You can buy some food for them, which was just popcorn kernals, and feed them. So of course, we did it. They swarmed all around us and even perched on our hands, just pecking at the food. It actually is quite sick, but still, you have to do it...it's Venice.
Venice is really pretty. It's completely touristy, but still, it's really picturesque. We stayed right by the Grand Canal. We bought some gelato (my new found obession...) and roamed around the streets. It was so fun. We went to San Marco Square the next day and did the whole pigeon thing. We then took a train down to Florence which is where we are now. We had NO directions to get to our hotel...actually we had one. It literally went like this: Get on bus 1, 3, or 7......umm, ok.
So we had some trouble getting on the right bus and once we did it was pretty funny. The thing was packed....I mean, really, really full. We had asked the bus driver where we should get off and he spoke very little English so he just told us he would tell us. So we kept watching him in the big mirror, hoping he wouldn't forget about us. Finally, with the bus jammed full, he yells at us to get off. So we squeeze through about a million Italian people and get off the bus, as they all stare at us. Pretty funny. Once we get off, we asked for directions to the street where our hotel was on. We walk and walk and walk and finally find the address, but there's no sign or anything. It's just a building. So this guy walks into the building and looks at us like, " You stupid Americans, follow me...." So we did, down these stairs and into this random house where this lady is sitting at a cluttered desk. She immediately knows who we are and, luckily for us, speaks perfect English. To make a longer story short, we are staying at this completely random womans home, out of which she rents a couple rooms. It's actually kinda cute. But the whole time wea re going "Where are we????" Again, funny.

Now we are at this internet cafe where this super hot Italian guy is working behind the counter, making espressos. I think I need to order one.....

I tried to upload some pictures but the computers here are soooooo slooooowwww. So I guess I will try again next time.

Until then....Ciao!