Day #76 in Orvieto (Edinburgh trip!)

May 9, 2013 - Thursday

We finished reading Purgatorio in class today! For the last hour of class, we went outside to read because we were reading about the Garden of Eden, so naturally we went to one of orvieto's best parks to read the chapter out loud! There were a few ants and lawn mowers but it was enjoyable for the most part.  Chapter meeting went until 1:30 today instead of ending at one. So Laura and I RAN to the Panificio, a bakery, to get some back up bread in case Locanda didn't serve us in time. Sometimes when we are late to lunch they don't serve us until 1:45. Which is when Laura and I needed to be on our way to the funicular! So we sat down at Locanda for like two minutes, they served the spaghetti at 1:47, we literally scarfed down our plates of spaghetti. I don't think I've ever looked so disgusting while eating something but that happened today (which wouldn't be that embarrassing but our professors eat with us and prof foster was across from me while I was throwing spaghetti and olive oil around). So then about one minute later, we received a few hugs from friends before running out of Locanda with our bags, on our way to the funicular! Took the funicular down to the train station, found the track, waiting there for a few minutes before getting on the train that arrived at 2:21 which was the departure time!

So we hopped onto the train and it was a really really nice train. We went to take our second class seats which looked like first class seats, we had our own box to ourselves and a boy came along pushing a trolley, asking if we wanted any snacks or drinks. It was like in Harry Potter! We were worried we were in the wrong seats for a while, but didn't think about it too much because we were comfy and it was two and a half hours to Florence. So about two hours into the trip, two girls (maybe a little older than us) came in to sit in the seats across from us and they continued to look at us and talk about us in some language we really couldn't identify. Then a man can around to check our tickets, so Laura and I gave him our tickets, a little nervous that he would tell us to sit in different seats. He look at our tickets, shook his head and frowned, and started to talk to us in Italian but he was talking so quickly and loudly and we didn't understand! The girls across from us apparently spoke English and they translated for him: 'YOU ARE ON THE WRONG TRAIN.'

Um. What. Not sure why this happened but we were on a train to BOLOGNA instead of Florence. So that was incredibly embarrassing and not only did we have to pay him 16 euros on the spot (because we were on a nicer, intercity train, instead of the cheap regional train that we planned to take), but we had to wait another hour to get off in bologna to figure out what to do next. In bologna, we went to three different ticket machines but they all stopped working halfway through. We searched a few different options but the train we needed was sold out, some trains would get us to Pisa at 8:44 but our gate closed at 8:45 so that was impossible. So pretty much we had to buy a ticket to Florence (a 45 minute train ride) for 24 euros because it was the only option! Feeling a little poor and embarrassed, we took our train to Florence, bought some snacks in that train station, then took a train from Florence to Pisa. In Pisa we had to take a train from Pisa centrale to the Pisa airport which arrived at 8:10. By the time we walked into the airport at 8:15, we were pretty frantic because our plane was supposed to board at 8:35!!! Originally, we were going to arrive at the airport at 6. We ran to the Ryanair desk where we checked our tickets, ran to security, ran to the passport check, and ran to our gate by 8:32 - with time to run to the bathroom and buy some more water. As we waiting in line to board the plane, Laura and I continued to look and each other and say 'I can't believe we made it.' I didn't think we would make it and she didn't think so either, but we had been lying to each other the whole time, saying 'oh don't worry, we'll make it!'

From that point we thought we were boarding our plan after then checked our boarding passes BUT... We walked down a stairwell and then walked outside where the put us on a bus. The day just continued to get weirder and weirder. The bus then drove us around the runway to the plane. We took our seats, opened a letter from Sara that she stuck in our bag, and ordered a snickers bar.

We arrived in Edinburgh three hours later. There is a one hour time difference so it was 11:05 in Edinburgh. The last struggle of our journey was to find the bus, buy a round trip bus ticket for six POUNDS (the first step was finding an atm since we didn't have any pounds yet), and then taking the bus for half an hour. The bus was really cool and was like the night bus in Harry Potter. It dropped us of in the center of Edinburgh where we waited for a few minutes for Kelly to come pick us up!

The double decker bus! Although this is the first level...

On the plane!