Under the Tuscan Sun (and moon)

Went to Lucca yesterday which is this small city about 2 hours by train from Florence.

Was having a great time on the train listening to music (I think I listened to Metro Station's "Shake It" about 20 times.. it's like my new theme song after nights out), eating my lunch kebab, smiling like a moron, and smiling at the hot Italian guy across the aisle.

The hot Italian got off at a station about 20 minutes down the line, and was replaced by this other young guy that wasn't half as cute, but was twice as determined to make conversation.

If, of course, you can consider anything between an Algerian who speaks about 6 words of English, 30 words of French and a billion words of Italian, and me, a conversation.

I didn't. It took him almost an hour for him to get through to me that he is a house painter by trade. It took another 1/2 an hour for him to tell me that his parents and siblings were gunned down in Algeria when he was only a few years old, and then it took him another 15 minutes to ask me if I had a boyfriend or not, and if not, would I like to go for coffee.

By chance, I did have a boyfriend at that moment, because I can't imagine anything more painful than coffee with someone that I can't talk to, or what the conversation would consist of since the only thing I know about him is that he has a sad past and he smells a lot of paint fumes.

Lucca is pretty, but unfortunately, not special enough to have made the 2 hour train ride for.

There is, however, something sort of funny about walking down an ancient street of an old fortified town centre in Tuscany and hearing the strains of "Sweet Home Alabama" as someone practices on their acoustic. Not very authentic, but funny.

Got back to the hostel at about 6, had a shower and decided to have a nap.

Was just entering an R.E.M. cycle when a knock on my door woke me up. I waited for a second to see if anyone else was awake and coherent enough to get there quicker than me (all in vain since I was like six feet from the door, and my other roommates were in the loft upstairs) and figured I would suck it up and just answer the door.

There was this cute little blonde American girl standing there, and she asks if I'm Bridgit, and if so, if I'm still planning to go out tonight?

Since I'm half asleep still, I wasn't sure what she was talking about, or how she knew that I was planning to go out, so I probably swayed and stared for a minute or so to let everything process, and then remembered telling the girl at the front desk about my plans earlier in the day.

I am, if nothing else, the queen of wonderful first impressions.

Turns out it wasn't held against me. The American girl, Jackie, came in and we chatted candidly for 45 minutes or so, and then made plans to head out at about 11.

A few minutes later I had convinced my roommate from Argentina, Mary Sue, to put on her heels and to join us, and at about quarter to 11, I went to make sure Jackie was almost ready.

She wasn't, but then being that she's female and I am too, I understand, and she's forgiven.

We discovered that I am the worst tour guide in the world, since I only manage to navigate around Florence based on how far or how close I am to the Duomo or the river. With it being dark outside, I didn't really have either reference point to begin with, so we may have gone in the wrong direction for a bit, and we made it to the bar at about 11:30.

Neither of my Albanians were there (likely because I told them I would meet them at 11 if I was feeling up to it), but there was a group of much older, much uglier Albanians there that scared the crap out of Mary-Sue, so we walked her back to the hostel and then went looking for fun in Florence.

Again, it was a trial. We went in the direction of the train station, since one of the bouncers at the pub recommended it to us as a place that MIGHT be happening, but we were having a tough time finding it.

Resourceful Jackie decided to ask a newsagent where the nearest nightclub was.

"Right Here", he says, and cranks up his radio.

She dances and I try hard not to pee myself.

We were sort of being stalked by these 2 creepy guys, so we decided we'd pretend we spoke some really obscure, nonsensical language and nothing else, and came up with Icelandic because we couldn't remember Bjork ever making sense, and you rarely meet people from Iceland, so no one would know the difference. (If you are reading this and you are from Iceland, I truly am sorry)

We walked right past them as they started catcalling and following us, and talked gibberish for about 2 blocks, until I told her to stop so we could confront them.

Sure enough, as soon as we stopped they stopped, too, and tried to initiate conversation.

We looked confused and spoke back and forth, and then finally looked at them, shrugged and said, "No English".

It didn't really work, since I assume they figured we were hot enough that a language barrier was a non-issue, and they tried, but we just waved and walked away.

This guy, handing out flyers for a club of sorts, managed to convince us that it was happening place with food (Jackie hadn't had supper), so we followed him for what seemed like a millenia (especially when I was being pursued by an Italian who smelled like body odor and figured my grunting "Si" or "No" was a sign of interest) and when we finally arrived. We looked at the 6 people there, Jackie got a sandwich, I got the loo, we ate and then left.

I managed to get us horribly, horribly lost. I'm so used to cities being set up on an axis, that when I'm confronted with these confusing circular streets, well, I go in circles.

So we walked through a plaza 3 times before I discovered we were lost. Jackie pretended to have faith in my abilities, and I pretended to, as well.

It didn't work.

If I hear the words Regazza, Bellisima or Bella one more time from a guy over 40, I might end up in an Italian prison. At first I took it all in stride, but walking around in a micro mini with a pretty blonde girl at 2 in the morning means that every Italian man - be he fat, thin, young, old, pretty, ugly or pretty ugly - figured that gave him reason to catcall us last night as we wandered around lost, and pretending not to be.

We did, however find the pub again, and proceeded to discover that Iceland in Italian is "Islanda", and pretended to chatter back and forth in Icelandic with the excitement of our discovery, while also pretending not to know what a "beer" is.

There were a few cute boys there, but there was also enough undesirable interest from non-cute boys that we deemed it unworthwhile and headed back to the hostel.

I went to the Italian Giardino di Boboli this afternoon to blow a few hours, and enjoyed myself. Then I did laundry this afternoon, went and had a great dinner and now I'm debating what to do tonight.

I kind of feel like drinking a lot of red wine and dancing in the streets without shoes. I also feel like seeing a cute boy and going for a walk.

Sleep feels like a priority, too, but I'll be in Rome tomorrow night and can make it up there.

I guess we'll see where the night leads.