Where in the world is Wendy Shu?: Florence, Italy

Florence was a very art-oriented city. We bought tickets to the Uffizi Art Museum, which I was excited about visiting, but it was hugely disappointing! After the Louvre in Paris, no other museum measures up. Italians also don't like tourists taking pictures of their artwork, so unlike the Louvre, we couldn't take pictures of anything :(

On our way to Florence, we missed our train (which was also coincidentally the last train to Florence until the next day). Fei decided to ask a police officer for help since it was 12:30 in the morning and no one else was around. The cop decides to pull her into a room, which worries me so I run after her. There are 4 officers in the room and they all start interrogating us and asking for our passports. For some reason, I remember being told that I shouldn't trust anyone in Italy with my passport...not even the police. So I refused to show them, unlocked the door and walked out. Three cops then come running after me, grab me, and tell me that if I did not show my passport they would take me to jail. Knowing that I had my passport safely tucked away in my passport holder under my shirt, I decide to humor them. But not before I kindly told them to "F--- off" :)

I walked back into the room and dumped the ENTIRE contents of my backpack on to the "head officer's" desk. (Remember, the passport's in my passport holder under my shirt). The cops were not so thrilled to have an entire backpack full of dirty, smelly, sweaty clothes dumped on their desk. I keep pretending to rummage through it, tossing dirty socks on his chair, a smelly shirt on his computer...all the while playing dumb like "oh gee...where oh where could my passport be?" The cop was so irritated at this point that he told me if I just gathered my belongings and got the hell out of his office, he wouldn't take me to jail for telling him to "F--- off". I chuckled, grabbed my stuff & my cousin and left with a smirk on my face. lol I almost went to jail in Italy. That would have been an interesting story to tell the grandkids someday :P

Getting off the train from Pompeii to Florence