Marianna's European Adventures: My Bus Tour of Siena

First of all, Happy Belated Easter to all of my readers. I hope everyone had a nice, relaxing day. I enjoyed an Easter pizza party with some friends to celebrate. I also took advantage of the delightful Irish holiday that is Easter Monday by walking to the nearby mall and eating at Bennigans...by far the most surreal experience of the trip.

ON TO SIENA!

Earmel had informed me during my 2 minute crash course on Florence that all museums would be closed on Monday. I decided this would be a perfect day to take a day trip to neighboring Siena. On the train I watched the sky turn from almost blue to grey. Aw man! By the time we got to Siena the sky was back to blue again, hurrah! I skipped off the train and went to buy a bus ticket into town. Here’s where I had my first problem, in Florence EVERYONE speaks English. In Siena…..not so much. I asked the ticket guy for a bus ticket and he printed one off for me. I asked him where to meet the bus and he said right outside. Good, we’re doing well here. I asked him which bus I should take as 7 busses met outside….he told me to take the one right outside. Alright then. Well Siena’s a fairly small city, all busses must end up there eventually. So I hopped on the bus that everyone was getting on, assuming that most people wanted to go from the train station to the city center. NOPE! They were all going to the hospital. After they get off at the hospital a new batch of people get on. Alright, we must be heading back to the train station, I’ll try again. We proceed to climb higher and higher into the hills of Tuscany until we reach what appears to be the end of the line in a small residential area. Ohhhh balls. I get off the bus and ask the bus driver how to get to the train station, if theres another bus coming. He tells me that there is a toilet in the bar across the street. I thank him. Side note, I hate thanking people in Italian because my “Grazi” always comes out sounding more like “YAHTZEE!” and I fear the day I mess the two up.
Another bus pulls in behind my bus. It’s sign says that it will be going to the train station. Excellent. I hop on that one. I begin to worry, though, when we continue out climb into the hills of Tuscany rather than head back towards the bus station. More and more people get on, this bus is either going to city center or the hospital. We reach a point that could possibly be the city and I was going to take a risk and check in out when a surge of people get on trapping me in the back corner of the bus. I can’t see through the crowd of people blocking the windows, but I’m pretty sure that was the city. But alas, I must continue on. I keep hope that this bus will end up at the train station, but my hope is quickly fading as the suburbs turn to farmland. Finally we reach the end of the line, NOT the train station as promised. I see the driver staring at me through his mirror…he would like some peace and quiet for his break I assume. So I get off and start walking down the road….maybe the train station is jut down the road? After about a block I stop, take stock of the situation and decide to suck up my pride and go plead to be led back to the train station. I’m frustrated and going to call this day a wash and just head back to Florence. I walk back to the bus with my head down. Wordlessly and without looking me in the eye the bus driver opens the door as if to say “yea…that’s right…you have NO clue where you are, get on the damn bus”. I struggle to ask if he’s going to the train station. He smirks. Starts talking in Ittalian. I nod and say “so….si?” He sighs and says “Si.”. I retreat to the back on the bus. So we begin our second journey together. I’m disappointed I’m not going to get to see Siena, it sounded great. Suddenly I realize that we’re back at that stop that could be the city. I hop off the bus. The driver begins to says “ah, no….” but gives up and just looks at me and shakes his head.
It was in fact the stop for the city and I’m incredibly glad I got off. The city was absolutely beautiful, although the skies were starting to open up by the time I got there. I wandered up the (steep) hilly streets until I made my way to the main piazza. There I grabbed some gelato and people watched for awhile. Lots of American high school students. I made my way over to the cathedral. It was AMAZING. Most beautiful church I’ve ever seen. I must have spent an hour in there just wandering around taking it all in. I began to wander back to the piazza when I decided to pick myself up some Tuscan wine for later the evening. It was there that I realized I didn’t remember where the bus stop was. Oh come on, Marianna, you are seriously failing at life on this trip.
So I asked a police man who said “Ah! It is easy! You go straight until you reach the Bank of Italia, ok!??!” Ah, easy “Non, non, after that you take a left” oh, ok, can do “Then you follow that street and take a right, from there you will need to walk toward the supermarket, then left then straight then around the corner, ok?” …….ok. So I head out, assuming there will be more people along the way that I can ask directions from. There were, but no English speaking people along the way. As I’m walking the skies open and a flood of rain like I’ve never seen before begins to pour onto me. I am SOAKED. But I keep walking. Finally I find two American girls and ask them. I didn’t know they were American, so I go up and say “ummm, scuzi, uhhh, bus station?”. They laugh and say “haha, we’re American, lets look in our guidebook” to which I respond “Oo, I want one of those”. They look at each other, I realize in all of my soaked glory I look and sound ridiculous….and they can understand my ridiculousness. Oh well. They send me in the right direction where I finally find the glorious bus station and the sun comes out. At the train station I race to make the 4:17 train back to Florence, hopping on as the doors are closing. Since I was pressed for time I didn’t hold my ticket in the stamper long enough and my ticket wasn’t “validated”. When the ticket collector comes by he begins to yell at me for not validating it. I put on my saddest face and say that I was in a rush and it must not have stamped and that I was sorry and wet. The conductor sighs…oh well, he says, next time remember. He turns to the American guy across the aisle from me, his ticket isn’t stamped either, the kid tries my routine. The conductor won’t have it and demands that the kid pay him fifteen euros for a fine. I refuse to look that kid in the eye for the rest of the train ride. I enjoy being a girl.