Operation Vinofest

Thankfully, yesterday was a somewhat relaxed day. Instead of walking around all day sightseeing, we drove around. Keith and Tania drove us around the Tuscan countryside, pointing out what they love about the area they live in. We also stopped at the oldest winery in the world and tasted some excellent wines.

When we got back to the house we packed up. We were all off for our trip to München (Munich) for Oktoberfest. Before heading to the train station we stopped for dinner at Keith and Tania's good friend's house for a home cooked meal. The hour long dinner was probably the fastest meal in the history of Italy (they are usuallz closer to 3 hours). It was delicious. But we had to rush out the door to make our train. We would have just made it, but the train ended up being 15 minutes late, so we could relax a little.

On the train we tried to set up Tania's computer so we could all watch Euro Trip until we made it to our connection in Firenze. Unfortunately we could not turn the sound up high enough to hear over the noise of the train, so Jessica and I narrated instead (we've seen it so many times we don't need sound) while we shared a nice bottle of red wine.

We had an hour between trains, so we went down to the bar across the street and shared another bottle of wine. We figured being a little tipsy would help us sleep on the train to München. When we finally got on the train, the guy working there said our reservations for the sleeper cars were no good. When we had made the reservations in Rome, the guy had made them for Saturday night instead of Friday night, and we never checked the tickets.

Unfortunately, not only were all the sleeper cars reserved, all the regular seating was full up. There was no where to sit. We wound up camping out at the end of one of the train cars, and decided we needed more wine. Luckily, this particular train car was the last before the sleeper cars, and they locked the door between the two cars, and the bathroom at that end was out of order, so we had the end of the train to ourselves. Except when we stopped at stations along the way. Four hours, 1 1/2 bottles of wine, and some intermittent sleep later, one of the regular seating rooms cleared out, and the guy working the train pointed us towards the empty seats. He one of our new favorite people.

But the fun does't stop there. In the process of trying to lay down the seats, Jessica spilled her full cup of red wine on my light blue jeans. I was soaked, and cold, and tired. After that we slept lightly until we made it into the München train station.

We had reservations at the Marriott, but the check in time was supposed to be 3pm. We had arrived at 8:30am. But lickily, we arrived and they were able to get us into a room right away. Today we begin our Oktoberfest adventure...