We arrived at the Stazione Santa Maria Novella in Florence at 11:30 to catch our bus, scheduled to leave at 11:44. The company we were using was called Terravision and we quickly found a bus with the label written huge across the side. We waited in front of that bus for a while until a small group of older British folk arrived behind us, wondering out loud whether or not this was the bus that they wanted. We found out that they were going to be on the same bus as us and then another member for their party arrived telling us that our bus was in a different part of the station. So we joined their group and trekked over to the roundabout where another Terravision bus was waiting. The man from their group approached the open door of the bus and asked if this was the 11:44 bus to Pisa and the man nodded before getting into a loud argument with a police officer. Before any of us could get on the bus, he shut the bus doors and drove away. We all looked around confused and watched the bus circle the block and then stop between where we were standing and where the other Terravision bus was parked. The bold man from our group walked once more up to the driver’s side window and asked if the bus would let us on now for Pisa because at this point, we were nearing our scheduled departure time. Again, the bus driver nodded and began to back the bus up, then move it forward again, as if he were trying to parallel park it in the middle of the road. We all stood right outside the bus and watched—suitcases in hand—as the bus did this little dance for ten minutes. When the station clock finally reached 11:44, the bus finally departed and this time it did not come back. I was astonished—there was nobody on that bus. The six of us walked towards the bus where we had initially been waiting and a new driver was standing there telling us that his bus would leave at 12:10. The bold Englishman yelled at the driver for a bit, telling him that this was unacceptable. When I finally handed him my ticket, I reassured him again that we had waited directly outside the bus and the driver had slammed the door in our faces to which this new driver responded with a shrug and said, “Eh…this is Italy.” I gaped at him as he turned his back to me. Not bothering to keep my voice down, I turned to Kari, “He’s blaming the incompetence of his company on his country?!”
We made it to the airport on time, if slightly upset. It turned out, of course, that our timing didn’t make a difference either way because our flight to London was delayed an hour and a half. Thanks Terravision and RyanAir! Lesson learned? You get what you pay for.
We finally made it to London and even bonded with an older Irish woman on the plane who ended up accompanying us from the Stansted Airport to London as well. We arrived a little over an hour later than we had planned and starving so we made our way through Victoria Station to a cute little stand with a sign in the same typeface as is used for the Harry Potter chapter titles (yes, I am that big of a Harry Potter buff). It was selling pasties which are like the British version of a calzone, served hot. I ordered mine—in English!—filled with cheese and mushrooms and it was the most delicious thing in the world at that moment. Pasties in hand, we bought Oyster Cards (a week long pass for the Tube and busses) and boarded the Northern Line Tube to Goodge Street. We found our hotel (The Ridgemount, I highly recommend it) and discovered that, though we had paid for a double room (a “twin” in Britain), our room contained four beds. Consequentially, the room was quite spacious and incredibly cozy. We freshened up a bit then headed out again into a beautifully crisp autumn evening to see the London Eye and Big Ben all lit up at night.
After Kari dragged me away from the bookstore, we boarded the Tube once again and both of us realized that we were about to crash. So time to rest up because tomorrow will be a very busy day.
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