Love at first sight

The quest to arrive in Florence was quite the battle.. it began smoothly as we hopped onto our train in Venice, but slowly changed to one which tested our patience as we arrived in Bologna to meet a train which was to arrive at 13:20, but arrived 40 minutes late and so full of people that we did not make the train. Instead we searched for another, traveled to information, and followed the masses to the bus info station. We decided to see if we could push our way onto the next train. We ended up pushing our way along with the mass of people onto the next train! We sat on our luggage next to countless others who managed to climb onto the train... all of us thankful to make it on before the police yanked us off!

We, of course, had not booked a room, and discovered that this was an Italian HOLIDAY.

. hence the reason for the overcrowded trains! Luckily, we came across this great Italian named Antonio who approached us and offered a great deal on a flat where he lived. To think that we almost turned him down because he showed us photos of it from his cell phone!! :) We stayed in his flat along with 4 others... we had our own kitchen, massive room, bathroom complete with a hairdryer... which I had not used the entire trip!

Antonio was a trip! He is a 36 year old Italian man from Sardinia who is unmarried and happily "single".. he talked of getting married and how his girlfriend might not be the one for him because she doesn't cook or clean:) After discussing the macho Italian men, he decided to change our perspective by cleaning the kitchen for us:) He also informed us that although he was 36, his look was young:) He then proceeded to tell me that I was his type as did another Italian at the hostel, Nico, who told me that fate brought us together... :)