Low moments in Italy

For every high moment, there is also a low.

I was kicked out of the Florence airport around 2AM by police who were trying to close the building for the night, but that really wasn't that bad. There was a nearby bar/cafe/convenience store which was 24 hours where I consumed, in alternation, Italian beer and espresso.

Bad was the shower at the Zebra Hostel in Florence. Hostel. Hostel as in, six beds in a room, bathroom down the hall. I was pretty tired by the time I was ready for a shower that night, and I'd neglected to rent a towel from the front desk. Actually, I wasn't even sure I could rent a towel there, so I was in the "aw screw it" frame of mind by then anyway.

The showers were in the men's bathroom, which was very poorly designed to the point that if you opened the door into the hall, there was a direct line of sight through the sink area straight into the shower stalls. After I'd stripped nekkid and stepped into a stall, I realized there was no soap. I had my own shampoo, but shampoo just doesn't cut it as far as removing travel grease and grime from the skin goes. So after I got the water going, I had to make a few mad dashes (streaking) to the sinks to pump some liquid soap into my hands so I could dash back to the shower to lather up.

I dried off with a thin shirt which was not clean in that I had worn it before, but not dirty in that it'd never been in direct contact with my body. Still. Drying off with not-quite-dirty laundry is really not a moment that will go into my favorite travel moments book.

Other crappy moments in Italy- finally getting to the MAXXI museum and realizing it was closed that day, then finally getting to the Ara Pacis and realizing that it was also closed that day, getting dressed down by two maintenance workers in Italian for sneaking into Renzo Piano's music hall.

Oh, and I tried to get cheap tickets to the world famous Opera in Milan. It was about an hour before curtain, and I was in my jeans (my baggy American jeans, no less) with my beat up Freitag bag. There's a little room with the box office window, and I was waiting in line, feeling the scorn from pretty much everyone there, who I might point out, were all twice my age, and dressed in what wealthy, old, Milanese wear, which is also the fashion capital of Europe. I decided against the Opera, partially from embarrassment, but I told myself that it was really because I didn't like opera in German anyway.