I lived in Europe during my early 20's (yes, we hitchhiked and it was fairly safe). My daughter who is 38 and I recently traveled to Florence and "meant" to go to the Cinque Terre as well. . . We didn't get to the Cinque Terre . . . and had to travel back home to Chicago (her) and Tennessee (me) about 4 days early due to the fact that I fell (or 'face planted' into a piece of unmovable concrete!) I look like I gal who went on a bender due to the left side of my face being black, blue and green. I also (more importantly) cracked my ankle and put a crack under a cheek bone. We weren't drinking although if you looked at me, you'd conclude I'd been in a hell of a bar fight! It was early morning and we were leaving our 'ancient and beautiful house rental' where you enter the street level area - it is pitch black and in some of these the lights come on automatically due to your motion and then go out without motion which is what I thought our's did. I was WRONG. My daughter was hitting a big metal plate switch when we entered. She went to try to see if our taxi was outside and I stayed inside but the light went out. I moved my arms thinking it would reactivate (nada) and then stupidly, I went forward and stepped on a maybe 3 inch step and face planted into the concrete - ankle went from a little nob to a softball size lump; right side of my forehead was bleeding - a hard fall with no hand bracing. . . I'll speed up now . . . Laura found me calling for her; got an ambulance hailed pretty quickly (but I think it was more like a dog cart to my recollection which was bumping and grinding against all the old stone pavement in the narrow Florence streets to get me to the hospital. Long story short(er) - I was there all day on an examining table waiting for all med aide to be rendered. Fitted with a leg cast up to below my knee, medicated for a pretty severe concusion. I'm normally an over the top stylish dresser so here I was in my stylish dress and shoes with a face that looked like I'd been in more than one bar brawls and I was super depressed, embarrassed and mortified as a proper Southern lady! Frankly, many of the attendants in the hospital were very unkind - I decided it was the Trump Factor. The sad thing they didn't know is that I'm a huge Democrat who never voted for Trump either time and I am a Southerner. My daughter heard them too and agreed that kindness didn't seem to be a priority that day anyway! My advice is never "move" in the dark in any Italian garage - they like steps and the streets, sidewalks are all very dangerous although I had no trouble walking all over the city for a week and I'm 70 but I workout a lot and am very fit for my age. I managed all that but not a 2 or 3 inch step in the dark I could not see! I paid for the whole trip for us and I ended up losing quite a bit due to having to change plans, hotels, etc. WATCH YOUR STEP. . . My only other complaint is THE NOISE but I live in the mountains of East TN in a small town; it is pastoral, quiet and full of the sounds of birds, a ticking clock, and when we first entered our magnificent apartment (it was magnificent), where the windows are huge, from every room you could hear people yelling, laughing, talking, buses, cars, rattling by due to the stone streets and the tall buildings funnel all that noise upward and into our beautiful courtyard with it's gazebo type building where we could look down on the street from open shutters (people were constantly taking photos of our lovely building) but FOR ME THE NOISE WAS DEAFENING. Finally, my corporate executive daughter chided me and said, "Mom, you just have to get used to it. It's different here." So, after I calmed my rattled nerves, I tried hard to do that and pretty much succeeded UNTIL the accident. . . Of course, we had to leave (that is another arduous tale - getting home wasn't easy - from Florence Airport to German Airport to Chicago Airport (with my disability) and then (for me) to Tennessee!
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