Firenze

Been a while I know.

Ok, I am now in Firenze (Florence). Arrived in town yesterday (31st) around noon and proceeded to look for the hostel. I have been having a bad habit of arriving at a new country with no money and no directions to the hostel. I am staying at the Archi Rossi hostel which has a webcam on its website (google it), maybe you can see me walking in or out of the place. So when I got my room I showered up and then slept for an undertermined amount of time. Time for me here is often undetermined because I still do not have a watch. When I woke up I met these two guys from LA, Jimmy and Matt. We started the night off drinking wine and beers in the common room down stairs then Matt suggested we go to a club he was told about. We went out to find it but never did. When midnight came around the streets were packed with people and they sprayed champagne everywhere and fireworks were going off. The fireworks were not the colorful variety, more like the m80 kind, the ones that make a loud noise and that is it. A few minutes later people proceeded to smash their bottles on the ground. It was good fun. We then went to a club called the Andromeda. Since it was new years, the cover charge was 35 euros, but you get a free drink. our free drink was a vodka and redbull. We talked to some girls and had a few more drinks and took off. There was an Irish pub down the street of our hostel so we stopped in and met two guys who were twins from Chico. we had a lengthy discussion, but I cannot remember what the subject was about at all. I had a Guinness and took off for the hostel. I was told it was around 4am when I took off. I got in bed and thought it was a good night. I had the top bunk and leaned over and proceeded to puke on the floor. I wiped my mouth and then thought, now it was a good night.

Today it has been raining nonstop. I hate it. Give me snow any day, fuck rain. I guess I should mention something about Brussels as well. I would say that place was teh lowest point of my trip so far. I did not meet many people there and the night life was not the greatest. The first night I went to a jazz club which was pretty cool, there was not an empty seat in the whole place, it was packed. The music however, was not my favorite. They played fusion jazz, which to me sounds like all the players were soloing at the same time. There was absolutely no rhythm to the music, it just did not make sense to me. but the people there were eating it up, they loved it. Oh, and the greatest find at Brussels was the Delirium bar. Some might recognize the name Delirium. Yes, it is the same beer with the pink elephants on the bottle. The same stuff that I drank the night I will never forget but never remember. Their claim to fame: 2,004 beers from around the world were served there. Their beer menu was as thick as a phonebook, needless to say I was there for a while and visited twice. I checked out the museum of musical instruments which was a little boring. I checked out the Faberge collection at another museum and it blew my mind how incredible some of their work was. I got to see 14 of the famous eggs Faberge did for the Czar in Russia.

I had trouble getting to Firenze from Brussels. It seemed all the trains to Paris were booked, and going through paris was the most direct route. I ended up getting a train to Bern (Switzerland) then taking a night train to Firenze. Sleeping in a couchette is not comfortable, especially if you are in the very top one. Bern, by the way, was the coldest place I have been to so far. Munich was the coldest before I arrived at Bern. Amsterdam I was comfortable wearing my long sleeve shirt, jeans and a rain jacket outside. Brussels was almost as cold as Munich at times. Florence is just like Amsterdam but much more wet.

Christmas in Amsterdam blew. Everything was closed and pretty much sat around drank a few beers I had bought from a store and watched The Incredibles in the common room downstairs. Christmas eve I found a great bar called In De Wildeman where I met a guy from London. He was in Amsterdam for business (I wish I had asked him what business). We started talking about beer and I mentioned that I was just at Andechs. He then told me he lost his wallet and girlfriend there a while ago and asked if I found his wallet. He recommended I try a beer from the Bavarian area that was brewed by a nun. It was delicious. He told me he was going to a party new years eve that would have two barrels of that beer. I wish I had written down the name of the beer.

That is it for now.