fun sleeping arrangements, etc.
So today was our last full day in Florence, and I spent most of it sitting, because my foot has decided not to function.
Yesterday was more interesting. We went to the market, a church, and…climbed the Duomo. In doing that, I discovered that France is not the only country whose tourism policy consists of luring them up huge flights of stairs with promises of great views in order to KILL THEM…I mean, make them pay 6 euro.
Which are basically the same thing in the end.
We really like staying in a hostel, by the way. We are meeting lots of interesting people, many of whom laugh at our cooking skills (especially the Italians, who observed our cooking pasta for dinner last night with a lot of amusement). Last night we befriended a German girl who was reading Harry Potter in English in the common room, and went out with her.
Tomorrow morning we leave for Venice, where we’ll hang out (and, by all accounts, get bitten a lot by mosquitos/bed bugs etc. and be generally miserable) for a day and a half before getting on a sleeper train to Munich.
We took a sleeper train to Florence from Lyon, and it’s sort of an interesting thing. We opted to go the cheap route and get a couchette–so when the train pulled in, we watched nice two-bed and then four-bed rooms roll by first. Once we boarded the train, it reminded me a lot of where Leonardo DiCaprio stayed on the Titanic (the movie…not the real boat) in that there were masses of people speaking a lot of different languages in a really, really small space. The hallway was about four inches wide. Each room has couch things and then two higher-up bunk beds. The couch things fold into two beds, which you can lay on with the cleanish sheets and fall asleep to the gentle sound of a train horn 
Actually, I slept really well on the train, but I don’t think anyone else did.
Also, I should remind you all that this trip is fabulous and that my complaining is strictly (intended to be) humorous. Mostly.
Bye!
–Amanda