Life in Limbo: Day 24: Plane, Train and Automobile

Thursday - June 10, 2010:

Today seems like one big blur -- we were all over the place! Our day got off to a slow start and we didn't leave the hotel until around 10. The first thing on the aged for today was a tour of the Salvatore Ferragamo Museum. But this was deceiving because we thought we were going to see how Ferragamo's shoes were made and the history of them, but it was really an exhibit of Gretta Garbo AT the Salvatore Ferragamo Museum. After this confusion, we went ahead with the tour and loved what we learned! Gretta Garbo was a beautiful, famous actress in the 40s and 50s (right up there with Audrey and Katherine Hepburn). She had a close relationship with Salvatore when he was alive and so she was a very big, well known client of his. In this exhibit we learned about Garbo and her film history. But the most draw of the exhibit were her original clothes and costumes they had on display. Man the woman could dress. She had impeccible style, so we were in awe of these outfits -- full of sophistication and class with her gloves and hats. It kept me asking myself, "Why don't women dress like that anymore?" It was so beautiful. I hate to say this, but we couldn't take pictures (major drag) but I highly suggest you Google Gretta Garbo and see some pictures of this iconic actress.

We then left the Ferragamo showroom and went to the second, and last, visit for the day -- the Ufizzi Museum. I won't spend too much time talking about this because it was so overwhelming and, to be frank, I was extremely zoned out during this one particular museum and had the attention span of a little child so I don't remember much. So sorry Ufizzi!

When we left the Ufizzi, a few of us went to grab lunch and walk around Florence for a little while. I left the group and headed back to the Hotel to post a blog and check my email. Dedication! The group was meeting at 2:30 to leave for the train station and this is when anxiety, nerves and excitement set in because.... Becca and I were going to LONDON! Yep, that's right -- we optted out of the group trip to Cinque Terre and made plans for the 2 of us to go to London (Londie as we like to call it)! Somehow, by pure luck, we booked our flight out of Pisa -- I say it was lucky because this is the same place that the group was headed to get to Cinque Terre so we got to stay with them a little while longer!

All of us hauled our bags across the streets of Florence to the train station. Cinzia helped Becca and I get our train tickets to Pisa (thank goodness we had her to help us) and we then made our way to the platform. Us and the rest of the group took the train to Pisa and then, once in Pisa, we parted ways! It was so sad to leave everyone! Becca and I got really nervous once on our own, we kept laughing and saying "What are we doing?!" But we loaded our next train that took us to the Pisa Airport and were on our way (still laughing and asking "What in the world are we doing?!").

{On our train to the Pisa Airport.. we are saying "What in the world are we doing?!"}

{Our itinerary we made for the weekend. I want to submit it to Fodors.com or Frommers.com...}

Once we got to the airport it was like 5:00 and our plane didn't leave until 10:15, so we grabbed a slice of pizza (pizza in Pisa hahaha), sat outside and took our time eating dinner. After that we still had a ton of time so we exchanged our Euros for Pounds (I'm on my third currency. Weird!) and got some gelato. Apparently Ryan Air doesn't like to be prompt about anything, so we didn't check in until literally 30 minutes before our plane was supposed to leave. A little bit different than Delta! We had to switch around some things to make the strict weight requirement, but somehow we passed and then headed for our gate. Once to the gate, we had to wait foreverrrr. You would think we would have gotten impatient and antsy, but we were just happy to be heading to London so we barely noticed the annoyance! We made friends with a girl from Penn State, Meg, who was traveling to visit her boyfriend - so that kept us entertained. Our flight got delayed and, to spare the boring details, we finally boarded at 11:45. Since we had eaten like 5 hours before, we were starving during our flight. When the flight attendents came by with hot food, we took them up on the offer and ordered a hot sandwich and chips. Yea, we were THOSE people that were eating food on a plane. Sorry Ryan Air! Our plane safely (thank heavens) landed in London around 1:00 a.m. so we got off the plane and dragged ourselves to Customs. The line took forever, but we made friends with some true London-ers and got some tips on where to go during our brief stay.

Once through Customs, we retrieved our bags and ventured over to the ticket counter to get tickets for a bus to London. We barely made it to the bus in time, but we did! (You couldn't have paid us to have waited on the next one because we were so ready to get into bed). We got the last seats at the very front of the bus, which ended up being fun because we got a front row view of London and made friends with the driver. I forgot England cars drive on the other side of the road AND the other side of the car -- it was scary! I felt like I was on the bus to Hogwarts (and the sweet bus driver was reading Harry Potter haha) The driver was so nice and we talked to him the whole way -- he even asked us to come have a real English dinner at his house in the country with his wife and 2 sons. This was when we first noticed how nice people in London are! He dropped us off at our stop and then we took a taxi to Picadilly Backpackers. We chose this particular hostel becase it has primo location and since we were going to only be there for 3 days, we took convenience over cleanliness. We had to keep reminding ourselves of that choice when we walked into our room because it was literally a dump. But it didn't matter because we changed and immediately fell asleep! I can't believe we actually made it... We were so proud of ourselves! It was 3 in the morning when I first saw London through the bus windows but I can already tell I love this city :)

{Us in our cab -- so thankful (and quite shocked) we actually made it!!}