October21, 2005
ITALY - Flustered in Florence.
Out of the five cities I traveled through in Italy, Rome, Florence, Pisa, Venice and Milan, Florence was my favourite. The weather was brilliant and everything was pretty ... except the local people's attitudes. Where's all the happy singing Italian people you see on television commercials in North America? Are those images of smiling, pizza tossing chefs imprinted on pizza boxes all a big lie? Why is everyone so sour and filled with contempt? I have yet to come across a joyous shopkeeper or restauranteur that smiles or puts any effort into pleasantries. Is it the thousands of travelers who trample through their lives everyday that build the disdain for social interaction? I felt as welcome as a parking meter enforcer writing out infractions, or an income tax auditor, or a proctologist smearing cold lubricant on the finger of his rubber gloves. And again, much the same as Rome, the food was a big disappointment. If I, who can't cook for crap, can slap together a more pleasing meal than the one placed in front of me that I'm paying huge quantities of euro for, than I should seek nourishment elsewhere.
Whoa. I sound a bit bitter. I should clarify. I'm not saying Florence is a nasty place filled with rotten people ... I'm merely stating my experiences as one of the million tourists who visit Florence every year trying to live some sort of Italian culture for a moment or two. Tourism seems to kill the culture, exaggerate stereotypes, and water down everything so all can enjoy. I don't want Westernized Italian food like the tasteless cardboard crap they pass off as pizza sold near the museums and galleries. I don't want the plastic Jesus mementos or flashing, sparkling, beeping monument figurines which will slowly decay in the bottom of my closet. I'm tired of seeing thousands of visitors names scratched into the stone surface of a ancient temple or black spots of chewing gum stuck to floors of centuries-old buildings spat out by asshole tourists. It's no wonder, as a tourist, I'm treated like another shithead that will invade their beautiful city, rich with Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Angelico, Giotto, and Michelangelo paintings and sculptures, and assume I'll treat it like a public toilet.
Whoa. My head hurts. I should clarify my clarification. It's the rampant money-grubbin' tourism I despise - it ruins the authenticity and innocence of a destination, and litters it with people, some of which are stupid turds. I'm just as guilty as all the visitors I complain about - I push and shove through the crowds to get a good picture, I take the big tour buses through fragile environments to see whatever is endangered, rare, unusual or spectacular, I drink the cheap beer, and eat the crap food with a faked smile on my face. What the hell am I trying to say? I think I like to hear myself whine and complain, it makes me feel important. Anyway, I can understand why the locals are miserable. Now on with the hatred and my inane ramblings...
When I first arrived in Florence, I found the street on which my hostel was located quite easily, but when I knocked on number ten, a security guard hauled open the door and muttered something about 'no hotel here'. I pulled the tattered slip of paper from my pocket as the security man shut the door in my face, and studied the address I had scribbled down, and yes, it read number ten. "What do I do now?", I thought to myself, frustrated that I had paid a deposit for this hidden hostel. I jumped in front of someone walking by, and asked if they knew where this mysterious hostel was, showing him the name written on the paper. He said "It's probably red ten, not black ten", and then sauntered away. "What the fuck does that mean?" I wanted to yell after him and then throw my backpack at his smallish head. It seems that Florence has a double sequence street numbering system - residences are numbered in black and businesses are identified in red (or a letter 'r' following the number). There were two number tens on this same street, and I had mistakenly knocked on the door of black number ten. Silly me.
I met my newest friend Angelo in our four-foot by twelve-foot dorm room, in the hostel at number red ten, just around the corner from the Florence Duomo. It was a bit of an awkward moment as he had to climb over me and my bed to get into his, at two in the morning. Luckily I was already conscious, awakened by a drunken lout passing his intestines through his mouth below the window of the third floor room. I don't understand it, each night I was awakened by severe retching, and the soothing sounds of chunky liquid splashing against the asphalt. There was nothing special about the area below my window, or any bars within blocks, why was this the chosen place to upchuck? I guess it's just another strange occurrence that becomes one of the memorable highlights of my trip.
The room was the smallest dorm I've paid for yet. I'm not even sure how they managed to get three beds into this miniature storage closet. Every time the door to the room opened, it slammed into the metal frame of my bed, waking me up from my sweet dreams of my mom's spaghetti, lasagna and other Italian dish delights that seemed so far away even though I was in Italy. Angelo, who is an Italian and lives in Australia, was equally unsatisfied with the touristy food as much as I, so after complaining about everything while sipping fake pints the next day at a simulated Irish Pub, we went on a culinary mission to please our palates. And again, much the same as Rome, we had to break out of the large tourist perimeter to plunge our forks into decent food, served to us by a friendly waiter who didn't mind us pointing at the Italian words printed on the non-English menus and saying "I'll have this one". With the multiple vacant plates that sat violated before us and our resting expanded bellies pampered from forkfuls of glory, my pre-Italy dreamy thoughts of Italian food were restored.
I found out Michelangelo's David statue was just two blocks down the street from my hostel in a small gallery that you'd never know was there except for the hundreds of people lined up to get in - even at seven in the morning. I'm certain David's penis is a marvelous marble adventure, but I wasn't going to inch along the sidewalk for hours to see it. I have a penis too, and the city of Florence is ample with carved tallywhacker, so I didn't need to see another. I decided to walk back to my room and stare at mine for three minutes and fourteen seconds, before moving on to visit the Arno River and the Ponto Vecchio bridge. I wore out my feet floundering through Florence admiring the buildings, sculptures, the Santa Maria del Fiore Duomo, and watching street performers who commandeer streets for fleeting tourist attention. I was frequently harassed to purchase a Prada or Gucci bag from the hundreds of illegal street vendors, some who brazenly sell the designer fakes on the sidewalk in front of Prada or Gucci stores. Every twenty feet there's another blanket lying on the sidewalk with thirty or so counterfeit bags waiting to be sold. When the police walk close, the four corners of the blanket are swiftly snatched up and transported to the next pedestrian high traffic area. Bada Boom, Bada Bing.
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