It's time to do me!: Iron & Wine...so fine!

February 12, 2011

I woke up this morning at 8 because I wanted to get ready, pack my lunch, and head to the school because I realized there was one thing I forgot to print out! I managed to do everything all in good time and when I got home from the school Lauren and Claire were ready and we headed to the train station. Lauren, Ivy, Nora, Ryan, and I were the only ones who were going to the Iron & Wine concert, but Claire, Stephon, and Jordan met at the train station as well because they thought about tagging along and just going to Bologna for the day. When we started looking at the machines to buy our tickets we knew that the best and cheapest way to get to Bologna was to take a train from Santa Maria Novella (our train station) to Firenze Rifredi (the second train station in Florence), and then a different train from Firenze Rifredi to Bologna. WELL, we noticed that there was only one slow train (the cheaper train) that was running in the afternoon to Bologna from Rifredi and that if we wanted to catch that train we had to take the train from S.M.N. to Rifredi that was leaving in 8 MINUTES! It was such a mad dash for everyone to buy their ticket and we literally RAN to our platform and onto our train, but luckily all of us made it (Stephon and Jordan decided not to come) with about one minute to spare. SHEW!

The ride to Rifredi is only about a 5 minutes, but the ride to Bologna from Rifredi is about an hour. When we bought our train tickets for the train from Rifredi to Bologna it said that there was standing room only in second class, so we all decided to pay 3 more euro to ride first class and actually have a seat. Well, little did we know that our first class train ticket didn’t guarantee us a seat, so we could take whatever open seat we could find. We all found a seat, but at the next stop new people boarded the train who had seat reservations and kicked me and Lauren out of our seats…great! Thankfully there were exactly two empty seats in the entirety of first class, and we quickly snagged them up. Before we knew it we were in Bologna at last!

Next hurdle: Find our way to our hostel. We ended up calling the desk at our hostel wondering if we could walk to the hostel because it was only about 6 km from the train station, but they told us we definitely needed to take a bus. Well, we had a ton of issues figuring out the bus, but once we asked for directions we were able to get everything straight and boarded bus 93. On the bus Ryan had asked a gentlemen if he knew the stop that we needed to get off at, and luckily he was able to tell us exactly when to get off. We got off at the stop called San Sisto, found the sign for our hostel, checked-in, and got our sheets and room key. Nora, Lauren, and I all stayed in the same room and we quickly made our beds, locked our stuff up in a locker in our room, and headed back to the bus stop with the rest of the crew to go explore Bologna before we would face challenge #2: finding the concert.

Bologna is a pretty cool city, and just happened to be having the largest flea market I have ever seen in my life! We wanted to find a place to eat first because it was about 3 and most people hadn’t eaten lunch. I wasn’t that hungry, but when I saw chocolate fondue on the menu for 5 euro I was completely sold! They brought out this HUGE plate of fruit, the chocolate fondue, and a bowl of whipped cream…could it get any better than this!? Lauren got a pizza with artichokes on it which smelled delicious! Once everyone was done eating we thought we would head back to the flea market and walk around for a while. Nora and Lauren ended up buying these old school over-sized sweaters for only 1 euro…everything was ridiculously cheap! I was tempted to buy so many things, but then I realized that whatever I bought I would have to take to the concert with me, because we weren’t going back to the hostel until after the show was over. After walking around for a while it started to getting late and Claire was heading back to the train station to go back to Florence, and we decided we might as well go find the venue for the concert and get all of that stuff figured out.

We were plenty early, so I told everyone that if we passed a little place that had sandwiches or something that I wanted to stop and grab a bite to eat because I didn’t really have real food like everyone else at the restaurant and I was STARVING! We knew we were on the right street of the venue which was called Locamotiv Club, but somehow we passed it, but discovered a little pizzeria that I said we could stop in to grab a bite to eat and ask for directions. I ordered a pizza with sausage and potatoes on it…probably the best pizza and best combination of toppings on the planet earth! I completely devoured my pizza while Ryan went to go and find the Locamotiv Club, and when I was just finishing up he came back all excited and said “I FOUND IT!” The venue ended up being pushed back off the street a little bit, and we all started getting extremely excited once we picked up our tickets and realized this was real! Ivy didn’t have a ticket, but was hoping to find someone selling tickets outside of the club, and by no time at all she came up to us with this huge smile..it only took her about 5 minutes to find a ticket for 8 euro less than what we paid for our tickets! What a relief! We had to buy a membership to the club before entering, but once we got in we looked around and it was a cute little intimate space with everyone chilling and sitting on the floor waiting for the show to start. We were hoping that everyone would remain sitting for the show because that seemed to be the vibe throughout the club, but as soon as the opening act Tiff came on stage everyone immediately stood up beyond ready for this thing to begin!

Tiff was AMAZING! I don’t think there could have been anyone better to put everyone into a relaxed mood and get the show flowing. She was an amazing singer from the States and she played the guitar and the piano. When she played the piano I completely melted…more than music to my ears! However, when she left the stage the place started to fill up (and by filling up it was only about 250 people max…never before have I been to such a small and intimate concert!) and the anticipation started! Once that curtain opened up and I saw Mr. Sam Beam’s beard I knew I was in for a treat! I literally don’t know if I can express how amazing Iron & Wine was! The quality and diversity of their music was out of control..it made me speechless! And the falsetto of Sam Beam (the lead singer…the main man), along with his harmony with the girl singer BLEW me straight out of the water! I especially fell in love with this one guy who played like 5 different instruments! He would just constantly change between a clarinet, a flute, a saxophone (LOVED the saxophone!), and a couple other small quirky instruments. To sum it all up, I felt like I was in heaven for the 2ish hours that they performed! Probably the best concert I have ever been to!

Once we all walked out of the club floating on the clouds we decided to buy a water at this little store nearby, walk back to the train station (only about 15 minute walk) to catch a taxi back to our hostel since the buses weren’t running anymore because it was too late. Ivy, Lauren, and I got in a taxi and surprisingly it only cost 5 euro each for the ride. I couldn’t wait to take off my boots because my feet were killing me, get in my pj’s and go to bed! What a fabulous fabulous day!

Chocolate fondue!

So we asked the guy at the restaurant if we could use their restroom and he takes us
into this convenience store that's connected to their restaurant and opens up this wall
that is a legit functioning wall of the store, which led up to a bathroom...so cool!