Our plans go up in flames...

Well, Britt and I had a fool-proof plan, but even the best plans go awry...

After work at 7, we grabbed our already packed bags and headed to the bus stop in Gavinana to catch the 19:17 to Pistoia to catch a train to Florence for the night. We get to the stop with 20 minutes to kill, so we have a caffe and focaccia pizza from the Bar Francesci right by the stop. As our time gets closer, we head over and stand by the bus stop. At 19:17, we see a bus come up the street. And it goes right by us...we stood there just flabbergasted for about a minute and then jumped into gear with plan 2, the 20:30 bus. This time, however, on the schedule did not have a notation like the last one for Pistoia. So we were confused. A random man walks up to us looking at the schedule, points to the 20:30, shakes his head and says "no Pistoia, domani" which we took to mean that bus did not go to Pistoia and we would have to wait until tomorrow (domani). Well we decided to wait for the bus anyway and ask the driver himself. He arrives at 20:30, and actually stops. He opens the door and we say "Andiamo Pistoia" (We are going to Pistoia), to which he immediately responds "No, no Pistoia". Welp, there goes that. No more buses to Pistoia, no way to get to Florence that night. We call the hotel we were supposed to stay at and explain that we can not get down there tonight. Well, he is still charging us for our room. But oh well, nothing more we can do at this point. We kept telling ourselves (and still are) that GOD is in control! He has a plan and a reason for why we couldn't get out last night. But we are praying that nothing like that happens again! That was too much stress after an already long week!

So we decide to drown our sorrows in dolce (dessert) and caffe at the local restaurant. We end up having a lovely time and met some English people who were on a group tour. One woman stopped at our table and said, "Have we met before"? To which Britt responds, "No, but you speak English"! She laughed and then told us she was 96 years old and was traveling by herself! Talk about an independent woman!

Then we sulk back to our rooms and immediately begin planning the bus and train schedule for leaving on Saturday. The next day (today) we make our bus, make the train, and after asking several people where the "autostazione" is we are on the final leg of our trip to Siena! I am writing this on the bus, and we should arrive in about 20 minutes! We are going to be able to rule the world after these two months! And the funny thing is we are only arriving in Siena 2 hours later than we would have if we left last night. My go to comment with all of this has been "Sto bene" which means "It's OK"!

Now we are ready for an adventure in lovely Siena, and some lunch and gelato!

Ciao!