Day Five: Improper Hygiene

The month of November is National Blog Posting Month.  This is my 5th year participating. This year, for thirty days, I'll be telling stories from some point in my life.  Enjoy!

Many moons ago, in the spring of 2005, Ross and I went on a trip to Firenze, Italia (Florence, for the rest of you).  The trip was splendid and magical and if not the best trip I've ever been on, definitely in my top Five.



Now, though Italy is old, and they were on the wrong side of a couple of wars, the people and the country are very civilized and very clean.  And the food?  Oh, there is no way to describe the amazing food we ate on our little tour of Italy.

One area of the trip that left a lot to be desired were the facilities.  Being an old country, with old buildings, on old hills leaves a lot to be imagined as far as bathrooms are concerned.  I'm no hygiene nut, but I appreciate a decent facility to take care of my business.  Only being able to vouch for the ladies room on the trip, most of the bathrooms left a lot to be desired.  The majority were just holes in the floor with little foot print impressions indicating where you should stand.  The few really nice restrooms however had attendants, a fee, and a toilet ticket to indicate when it was your turn.

For some reason, this sort of situation makes me a bit nutty, but I can deal with it.  There were however, two instances however, where my always constant need to search out and use bathrooms, or attract those that need to go got me into a bit of trouble.



Instance One:
It was pouring rain in Florence.  It was getting late.  We were standing in like at the Ufitzi museum to see priceless works of art.  Both of us needed to go and there was no way we could get out of line - the clock was ticking towards closing time and we were in line with gaggles of Italian students.  Think Disneyland on Junior High day.

Ross had the brilliant idea to walk the block or so back to our apartment to go.  Brilliant for him.  He left me in line in the rain and round trip was back in about 12 minutes.  Then, it was my turn.  The line was moving much more quickly and I had to hurry.  I ran as quickly as someone desperate to use the facilities can run and got to the gigantic wooden door with the crazy lock that let us into our building.  After about 10 minutes of desperately trying to get the key to work in the pouring rain I gave up.  I ran back to the line.  Told Ross that I didn't go and that I was going to start crying - hoping that would relieve some of the pressure?

We got in the museum.  There was only one bathroom.  It was at the end of the line.  We walked up flights of stairs, ran past priceless works of art to find me the bathroom.  The museum was closing in about 30 minutes.

I got in line.  The line seemed short.  The line was not moving.  I was in trouble.  Why wasn't the short line moving?  Because apparently in museum bathrooms in Italy, you don't go one at a time - you take all your girlfriends into the tiny stall with you.  A door would open and 4 women would come out.  Then three more would go in.

I finally got my turn - took care of business - was sweating buckets and ready to look at art.  In 10 minutes, before the museum closed.  My time would have been better spent just perusing the gift shop.  Oh wait!  There wasn't one. 



Instance Two:
We had just spent the afternoon visiting a town called San Gimignano. It was this Medieval little tower town and was cool. Very crowded but cool. It was in the beautiful Tuscan countryside and we had to ride a train to an abandoned town (I think it was Sunday so nothing was open) and find the right bus stop to catch the right bus to the town.


As if figuring out all the logistics for our arrival weren't hard enough, as we got to the bus stop to head back down to the train we realized that we hadn't bought the tickets. Ross left me at the bus stop to hold a spot and who knows, speak Italian to the bus driver if he came and Ross wasn't back? No idea.


He probably left me so I could have a story to tell.


I was literally by myself on a bench when a little Italian man, sort of looked like Roberto Benini with the shakes, approached me. He was smoking and shaking and talking to himself.


Yeah, I thought. There are crazies everywhere.


This old man walked right up to me and stopped in front of me. He stared. I averted my eyes. He took a last drag, blew the smoke in my face and snubbed the cigarette out right in front of me.


Thanks, I thought. Just what I wanted.


Then, creepy old Italian guy reached deep into his pocket. A little too deep perhaps and pulled out a tiny little can of coke. He opened it, chugged it, crunched the can, threw it down and belched loudly.


Ross, where are you?


And, as if the guy weren't creeping me out enough (remember, I'm the only one around) it got worse.


He walked right in front of me, unzipped and.....


peed.


At the bus stop.


Right in front of me.


I was paralyzed with cooky fear.


Ross got lost in the city and took a long time getting back. By the time he got back, and we got on the bus, the nutty man was a few rows in front of us, shouting in his native language.


Probably about the stupid American girl who gave him no privacy at the bus stop.