Today has been the laziest day of our vacation so far. We were up pretty late last night, and decided we would take our day trip to Florence on Thursday instead of today, and its a darn good thing we did.
When I woke up this morning, the shutters blocked out so much light that I could barely see, so I turned on my phone to see what time it was. My sister, hearing my phone turn on, asked me what time it was. I responded (in my morning voice) "It's not possible!" What time was it you ask? 2pm. Yes, I slept half the day away. I wasn't the only one though, Tania slept until around 7:15pm. I guess we've worn ourselves out recently.
We basically laid around the house the whole day, playing on the computer, eating gelato (I'm officially addicted), watching movies, trying to upload pictures onto the web... Tonight we are just going to do more of the same.
So instead of a play-by-play of the day, I have some observations for you all. And some things I forgot to mention in previous blogs.
The electrical outlets in Europe run at 240 volts (the ones in America usually run at 120). So if you need to plug something in you not only need an adapter, you need a converter too. I plugged in my cell phone and blew my charger. Now I have to buy a new one for when I get home, and if I want to use my phone while I'm here (which I do) I have to buy a charger here too.
Italians don't put Italian dressing on their salads. They put oil and vinegar, salt and pepper. I haven't even seen any other options. And a salad in Amsterdam never looked like a salad I'm familiar with. They were always just a bunch of different vegetables. Like potatoes, beets, and sprouts. No dressing.
Since we've been here, I think every toilet I've seen has a different handle/knob/chain to flush. Sometimes it's a button on the top of the toilet, sometimes it's a panel on the wall you push in, sometimes it's a chain you pull, sometimes it's a button above your head you push in.... No uniformity whatsoever.
Jessica learned a valuable lesson. Don't use the pay phones that allow you to call America with your credit card unless you know exactly how much they are charging you. A few 5 minute phone calls cost her a couple hundred dollars.
Gas is 5.50 euros here. So no bitching about $3 a gallon. And all the cars are tiny. No suburbans, no giant, unneccesary 1 ton quadcab trucks. The biggest vehicles I've seen are the same size as the Scion vans back home, and those are delivery trucks or for transporting groups of people.
The public transportation system is great here. And people walk around all the time. Maybe if Americans walked more often, we wouldn't have the obesity problem that we have. The meals here are huge, but they are better for you than the fast food so many Americans eat all the time, and the food here is so much tastier.
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