Like I have said, I had mixed feelings about returning to Florence since the last time I was there I felt as though it was such a bust. I was also 19 then and it was also March...and it snowed and rained and was cold.
This time Florence came alive for me. Our first trip into the city, we went to the same leather works store that I was in the last time I was there. This time though, I bought a puzzle ring. A puzzle ring is something from Florentine culture that husbands used to give their wives as their wedding band. A puzzle ring falls apart and is actually pretty hard to get back together, so Florentines did not take them off and if they did, it would obviously fall apart and would be evidence that they were cheating...because who takes their ring off?
I am still trying to figure out how to get mine back together. I had it home for about a month before I had two little girls visit me and in playing dress up, the ring went to pieces. Must love kids! Haha. This is where the real teasing of Phil began too. Every girl that was close to us on the trip began to give Phil a hard time for not proposing in Paris for my birthday and then not in Florence on my birthday. It didn't help that I bought myself this ring.
This still is probably the most fun I had on the trip. We had the most delicious pizza that because of the Italian way, got for free. In Italy they have a receipt system where you order at one counter and then pay at another. We had come late so they messed up our checks and never put our food on it. Our waiter was also so annoyed that he would not come back for us to tell him he forgot to put us on it. We stood and waited for 15 minutes, even bought gelato from their ice cream counter and waited for him to come over. He never did and so we left.
I also do believe that this lead to the run in with the gypsy woman and the beginning of our bad Italian luck because we were sitting on the steps of a church getting WiFi and Phil came over to get money out of the secure bag and was followed over by a gypsy woman who once she saw money exchange between us, began asking us for some. Phil told her to get the hell out of here and she totally gave him the stick eye of death before she went away. His mom got a very nice gift, but it was there that the Italian curse began.
We walked around for the rest of the day and hit more shops and Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, which will always be one of my favorite cathedrals because it was the first one I have ever visited. Phil also snapped this ridiculous picture of me:
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| "I wish I were a real, girl!" |
We went back to our campsite, changed clothes and relaxed for probably 10 minutes before we went back into the city and enjoyed a Tuscan dinner. This is also where everyone sang me happy birthday and Phil and I split the tartufo that they had put my candle in. We also had too much red wine and this this picture now exists...it's actually one of my favorites:
We headed back after dinner and fell asleep very quickly. The next day we were up early because we were leaving for beautiful, Roma!
