Long Time Coming - Firenze!

Sometimes I think the only thing keeping me from actually becoming President of the World (as predicted in Judy Hirshey's 1994 Texas History class) is my incredible laziness. So now you're going to hear about my trip to Florence, Italy from the end of May. The pictures have been up for a while but I forced you to use your imagination to piece together the storyline and I apologize for that.

As I've mentioned before, there was a long period where I thought I was leaving Kosovo this summer to train up for a deployment to Afghanistan with my Army Reserve unit. That's not happening (at least for now) because I'm already doing my part to save the world from here in Kosovo. But up until a week before this trip I thought it was. Anyways, back in March my mom told me my grandparents were planning a trip to Italy with her and my aunt and wanted to know if I could meet them somewhere. Well of course I could.

My flight to Florence started on a mostly-empty plane from Pristina, Kosovo. Summertime is the height of travel season in Kosovo, however early on all the travellers are gastarbeiters (German guest-workers) or other Diaspora members living abroad who are going to Kosovo. Remember this point for later. From Pristina I flew to Zurich, changed planes, and then on to Florence.

Now my grandparents like to travel in style so they found the finest hotel in all of Florence, Hotel Pierre. Their, and my mom and aunt's, room was practically a deluxe suite. Mine, however much I like to think I'm making bank, was a closet. But whatever. I got to spend some time with family so I could make do.

Florence was beautiful and full of history, which I love. Little things like a secret archive in an otherwise unremarkable pavilion, a 2-kilometer passageway so the Medici family didn't have to mix with the rabble, a fat cherub riding a tortoise, Dostoyevsky's apartment (where he wrote The Idiot), and an old man wearing some awesome red socks made Florence an exceedingly interesting place to visit and explore. Four days can't really do it justice.

Some things I learned on the trip:

- If out to dinner, my grandparents will refuse to let anyone else pay. I think they do this so I will call more often.
- I hurry too much. I need to slow down so, a) I can walk and talk with everyone instead of leaving them 200 yards behind, which will b) let me enjoy the scenery (Italian girls dressed to show off). I think this is the real reason my grandfather walks slower.
- Tour guides are worth it. The first full day we had an Italian lady take us on a walking tour that included the Medici Loggia, the Palazzo Vecchio, some old churches, and the Uffizi Galleries. She was a wealth of information. The next to last day was a tour of the wider Florence area, not with an actual tour guide, but with a taxi driver who knew all about the area and cracked jokes about Berlusconi.

All in all it was a great trip, made even better by finding out that it was NOT my last hurrah before setting off for the scenic mountains of Afghanistan.

On the way back, I arranged to have an overnight stop in Zurich since I'd never been there before. Unfortunately, takeoff from Florence was delayed for a few hours and I didn't get to do the exploring I wanted. The city seemed like a good place to visit, though it was expensive: my McDonald's Big Tasty value meal cost fourteen dollars!

Remember how I said my plane from Pristina to Zurich was half-empty? Well, the plane from Zurich to Pristina was overbooked. And it seemed like everyone checked in before I did. At any rate, their baggage was checked in before mine and mine didn't even make it onto the plane. Along with half the other passengers. The Kosovar Albanians living and working in Switzerland must take back 4 or 5 bags apiece when they travel home for summer vacation because about 50 of us had to wait in line at the Pristina Airport lost baggage desk when our bags didn't show up. And their computer was broken. And it took 2 hours to clear everyone up. And I was last (this mostly because I didn't want to fight my way through a crowd of angry Albanians). Fun, fun, fun.

Other than that last day the trip was a blast. Mommee, Pap, Aunt Marti, Mom - thank you!

Update: And I most deeply apologize for an egregious oversight: Thanks Dad for paying for the plane ticket!