Padua to Florence

In the end I ended up spending the night in Padua.

Quite a pretty city with a nice laid back feel to it.

The food I had was very similar to what you might get in Australta but there was a huge basket of bread on the table and wine only comes by the half-litre - unless of course you order a bottle.

In the morning I had a wander around town - had a beer in one of the sguares - 9 dollars or so for a beer.
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Headed off in the train to Florence. Unlike in Germany they don't give you the info about when the train leaves and from where. In fact when I asked he said at two but the timetable had three minutes to.

My fellow passengers were pretty friendly.

The train didn't go to the main station so I thought I'd have trouble with my luggage as I'd have to find out how to get into the centre etc. all the time shleping my bags around but I spotted a couple of Asian girls who also had luggage and seemed to be going in the same direction. They turned out to be Korean so I was set. They looked after the bags while I went off in search of info about the bus and tickets.

Later, on the bus, I felt my pocket pc move in my pocket and the hand of the bloke standing next to me darted back under the towel he had draped over his arm. Not much I could do really. He hadn't been able to take anything. Bit of a scare though.

The Esperanto Congress is right next to the station so I had the strange experience of being able to ask directions to my hotel in Esperanto.

I checked in and wandered back to the congress area where all the activity was taking place on the grass outside. Lots of booths set up with info about different events and Esperanto groups. I spotted an Esperanto t-shirt with a kangaroo on it so I wandered over and the Australians started handing me the brochure for the upcoming summer school in Hobart. I told them I didn't need it but they weren't taking no for an answer. I wandered off and came back half an hour later and told them who I am. I probably should have dragged it out a bit longer.


Basically here we see a few Esperantists milling around and getting to know each other during the get-to-know-each-other evening.



Other than that I latched onto the only group that seemed to be drinking alcohol. Four Germans with a great sense of humour.