More thoughts on Florence

Scott pretty much covered our day in Florence, but I'm here to add some observations. He's the play-by-play and I'm color commentary. It was an amazing day and here are my highlights:

1. This is not from Florence, but in the grocery store the other day, we came around an aisle to see a cardboard display of hose. The side of the display is a beautiful Italian woman wearing black lingerie, and, of course, hose. Charlie says, "Oh my!" and Scott says "Viva Italia!".

2. Walking into Florence in the cold, pouring rain, I saw the quintessential Italian woman. Long dark hair pulled into a ponytail, dressed in all black (and all fitted, of course), wearing these gorgeous, sky-high heels. Oblivious to the rain, she pulls on her scooter helmet, hops on, lights a cigarette and zooms off. The very picture of style and confidence.

3. I don't know what I was expecting of David, but I was speechless. If you know me, you know that's pretty rare. I wasn't expecting to see him so soon. You walk in the door, take a left, and you are in the "knave" of his room. We were still taking coats off and getting situated, and boom, there he was. I did have a few thoughts of "this is a lot of money and hassle just to see a statue," but now that I've seen him, it is worth it and then some.

4. The kids and I had learned a fair amount about the places we visited in Florence, so it was really cool to see some of the things we learned about. Charlie liked looking for the prince's passageway on the Ponte Vecchio. The climb up the duomo was awesome. As we walked around the inner ring at the top, mass started and we could hear the singing, etc. As we walked outside, church bells all over Florence were ringing. It was like all ambient factors were working together just for us. :)

5. The kids were starting to get tired when we came upon a street vendor selling scarves. Margaret had been looking for one, so we bought one for her, along with one for the winter. As we continued walking down the street, she was much more lively. Scott said, "Margaret, you are just like Mom. It's amazing what a present can do for your outlook." So true.

6. Gelato report-after fighting through a huge group of French middle school kids, we were rewarded with some really yummy gelato. I had chocolate with some sort of nut (hazelnut, maybe?) and Charlie had strawberry with something else (we never figured it out). Margaret has taken a liking to coffee gelato. Vivoli had a rice gelato, which I'm assuming would taste like rice pudding. While I want to branch out and try some new flavors, the chocolate is hard to pass up.

It's good we walk everywhere and climb lots of stairs......