I woke up fucking early again, the jet lag is hunting me. We stopped at the port of Levorno, Italy around 8am. I was the first one at the buffet again, and they had really good chocolate milk ha. The port was exremeley misty and almost looked cloaked in grey. 5euro bus ride into town left us in the middle of downtown. 
Scrambled off the bus and jumped onto another one for 1 euro that would take me to the bust station. Everyone was so confused on where to go and no one spoke english. Again my spanish kicked in and I made a friend on the bus trip.
I forgot her name but she had a grip of piercings and tattoos. They were of an interesting art style and no one payed her any attention. We caught each other starting at the others tattoos and started laughing. She was into american soft rock, similar to linkin park. She told me that it wasn't so taboo to have percings and tattoos and that she never had any issues with getting jobs. She never saw plugs before so she was shocked. She helped me buy my train ticket and pointed us to the right train.
10:30 am- I was on my way to Florence, this really tall spanish looking guy and his little weiner dog sat across from me. He had a very strong spanish face but he smelled like BO and perfume big time!! His little dog kept smelling my feet and wandering around. Everyone on the train started petting him. So I did...fuck it. I love dogs.
My mom started talking to the guy with the dog, he carried himself well and was very surprised to see Mexicans in Italy lol. guess were an exotic breed here ha ha.
I dont quite remember what he did for a living but i got the wierd aura that he was a teacher of some sort. He told us of a few places to stop by and gave us directions to cheap/good places to eat. He spoke spanish, french, english, and italian....fucking crazy.
Some random girl boarded the train and started petting the dog without asking. She smiled and began talking to the spanish guy. She asked about my tattoos in italian and I looked at her funny. She spoke a little english and told me she was a student at the Academy of Art in Florence. She was on her way to school and she wanted to one day be a graphic designer. Feathers on her forearm, she explained that it was for "finding wisdom"...dope!! She looked nothing close to 21 but she was very outgoing and extremely friendly.I met a man from the same country in africa as Kanye West. He was a sun glasses vendor and was the same age as me. He wore a highlighter green button up and was dressed decently well. He was staring at me going through my pictures and I offered to show him. I went through all of the LA/San Francisco picture and he was amazed at how beautiful my friends were and how big the buildings were. He said he wished he could one day visit but he doubts he ever will. I didn't notice it then but he was one of the "street" vendors...
I got off and started wandering, of course we got lost because my mom has no sense of direction. Fuck. There were african vendors everywhere, one guy tried selling me glasses for 10euros which was insane. After speaking some spanish I got it down to 4Euro, but the glasses were cheap and thin so I didnt get them. The guy spoke portuguese, french, italian, spanish, english, pollish, and his native language. Companies would pay bank for people like him in the states, its insane how they adapted out here to improve their hussle. anything to survive right? but i didnt see to many people buying from them. Fake purses were a hit though, everyone who was selling them had a crowd of white women around them. 30euros for a fake louis vitton bag and they were legit according to a woman who has a real one.
Walked into a bank because my mom wanted directions....stupid right. of course no one spoke english or spanish so we dipped. she flipped on me because i mentioned it would happen lol. The rest of the city was extrememely clean, and i mean no gum on the ground, no trash, not even homeless people. Kinda weird.
I didnt want to stay around the city I wanted to go to the market places and see all the little things that everyday people in italy do. My mom wanted to see all the historical shit. Butting heads...again!!! After a stupid and pointless arguement we continued through the marketplace. There were a grip of tent vendors like at fleemarkets, but they all sold the same shit. no joke, the exact same leather belts, statues, key chains, jewlery but nothing of worth.
There were little wall carvings everywhere, and nothing to protect them from people damaging them. After getting bitched at for taking too long while taking pictures I followed my mom to this huge...huge church.
This thing was so intense on the eye, i had to look twice. no joke. the doors were over 20ft high and every little thing had detail. I wanted to go in but every fucking church was charging 5-10euro to get in and walk out. why dont they just sell papers that pardon our sins like they used too. its a fucking church a place for prayer, so why would you charge to get in?? w.e. a lot of people were still paying to get in
I strayed from my mom and went down a few allys, saw this guy playing the piano thing?? I caught me taking a picture of him and smiled, it caught me off guard lol. Throughout the trip I had to sneak most of my photos of people since everyone was against getting their picture taking without getting mad or wanting money. He smiled though.
The housing architecture was very clean cut in this area. everyone had simple/natural colors on their houses and the windows opened outward and you can see on the bottom right. Smart lol. so when it rains you can keep your windows open.
ran into some old school metal kids, they had old faded iron maiden t's on. There hair was fucking long and they were staring at me all wierd, as if not to understand the way I looked. I didnt see a single scene kid in europe, i though it was dope to see kids out here supporting the music scene. I'm sure they've experienced things out here I one day hope too....like a concert at a small venue in italy.
I watched a documentary on how people from afrca were coming into italy looking for work and to start a new life. Once here they deal with the fact that there arent many jobs that dont require a degree/education. Many of them start street vending but its like i said earlier, everyone is selling the same shit and there are tons of them. They struggle to get into the country only to face poverty here too. I saw a man sitting on the floor crying, people were giving him money and he was throwing it back at him saying "i am not a beggar". I snapped this picture while i walked by, i liked that he wasnt afraid of how he felt and that people could see his frustration. The reality was that he was on his own here....struggling....crying
One thing that really striked me was the guy i met earlier with the highlighter green shirt, he said thank you for talking to him. I hit me later that people probably dont talk to these people for any reason other than trying to buy things from them. no one asked how their day was, no one asked about things they were going through, no one really payed attention to them at all. they were like ghosts roaming around italy. there but not really there, silent but beautiful.2pm train ride to Piza, Italy- 1hr
I traveled through large open country with random houses every few miles. There were a grip of abandoned stone buildings along the train tracks and a flood of weed growing,...i seriously mean fields of it. the odor was intense. There were red poppy plans through the country side and farms. The taxi ride from the train station was 6 euro to the leaning tower of piza, it was a 5 min ride but we only had 40 mins to be in the city before we had to head back to the ship. (the ship leaves by a certain time and it would leave passengers if there not back on time ha ha.)
The leaning tower of piza was really crooked, you dont really feel the intensity of it until your standing right in front of it. Tourists were everywhere it was hard to tell who was a local and who wasnt. My friend killian worked in piza and i hit him up on myspace before I left about visiting. I met him at this club called moscow in hollywood a while back and kept in touch ever since.
He was the main chef it his little cafe Lavazza literally walking distance from the leaning tower of piza. He was surpised that I actually came and let me right my name on his cafe wall. He looked so different he got a lot of new tattoos on his legs, his dreads were way longer, and he streched his ears larger. He hooked it up with free pizza and coffee for my mother and I.
The bread was really dry and the pizza fucked up my stomach later but overall the food tasted pretty good. Food tastes better when its free ha ha ha !
The streets of piza were crowded with cars and still very clean, view from my seat before I ate.
Of course another picture of me being a fat ass, i porked the fuck out on all the pizza. the people behind me were from germany.
after a 10euro mercedes taxi ride back to the train station we boarded, I was exhausted from all the walking and sun exposure. I swear im 5x darker now lol. I noticed this guy day dreaming, I couldnt help but wondered what he was thinking about. a simple confterable life. a better job. his family back home. his troubles. a meal to eat. a girl??7:45pm I watched los locos ola' perform, they were one of the best musical/comedy performers ive ever seen. that means a lot coming from me. he would spit ping pong balls at people that would come late then scream OLA'!! so fucking good. check them out online...google it ha ha
10:30pm "Dancing with the Jade stars" was a dance competition put on by the ships crew and members of the cruise ship. One member from the crew would pair up with a volunteer from the audience in the upper level club and would compete in dacing through several different genres of music. One girl really stood out, she was throwing around this asian guy like a rag doll. But she was dominating the dance floor with every style that was played. She ended up winning the competition.
I went to the night club completely bent on making the most of tonight. Everyone was 40+ but fuck it I danced my ass off. all the white people really didnt know how to dance. ha ha. sure enough that girl that won the competition rolled up, after a quick introduction she was my new party friend. Her name was Talina, she was portugues and was from Florida. She lives in the UK now and has her own dance tv show that helps out under privaledged children and she also had her own clothing line. I was impressed, I hardly meet anyone productive with themselves at the age of 20. Besides her hourglass curves and her aesthetic facial features her goals were insanely appealing. She glowed when she danced, i could tell that it was her escape....the same feeling when I perform. We danced till big sister interupted and we said our goodbyes :]
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