A Day In My Life

On Sunday morning, Joe and I took Molly into Florence to attend mass. Paige opted to stay in bed, sleep late and go to the pool instead.

Florence is such a beautiful city and I was delighted to see it again!

We went to the 11:00am mass at Santa Croce. The priest rocked right through the mass and it was over in 50 minutes. Yahoo! Let's get outta here and go explore the city!

Since I love to take photos of every blessed thing I see, Joe kindly offered to carry my bag for me so that it wouldn't get in the way of my superior photography techniques.

We stopped at a 'tabacchi' (tobacco store) to buy some Italian stamps, a few post cards, and a couple of phone cards. The woman behind the counter was so sweet and patient with us. She knew no English, we knew no Italian. But that didn't matter. With the help of our Italian phrase book we all muddled through.

It was at that point that Molly said, "Mom! Where's your bag?"

We looked around. It wasn't in the shop.

I said, "Joe! You had it!" Joe said, "Molly! I gave it to you!"

Molly ran out into the street to the spot she had left it. It was gone.

The lady from the tabacchi was so upset. I told everyone it was okay.

There was no money in the bag. No passports. The only thing of any importance was my journal. And I can hold all those memories in my heart. I didn't need a book to do that.

A young man on the street asked us, "Have you been robbed?"

We said, "No, not really. We accidentally left a bag on the street."

The man said, "It's gone. The gypsies will steal the socks off your feet without you noticing."

Joe said, "Nanc, I'm sorry about your bag. Let's just put this behind us and not let it wreck our day." I agreed. Molly felt terrible, but I insisted that it was a cheap lesson.

As we walked away from the street, I said, "You know? That street was very quiet. There were no gypsies around. What if another tourist found my bag and handed it in to one of those stores?" Joe didn't think that was very likely, but Molly said, "Dad, it's worth a try."

So we returned to the scene of the crime and stood awkwardly on the sidewalk. How in the world do we ask in a foreign language "Has a pink bag been turned in?" Even our phrase book wouldn't help us in this situation.

As we were standing there, a woman from a pizza shop came out and began to speak to us in Italian. We had no idea what she was saying but as soon as she said Canada we knew we were on to something. Our faces perked up as she led us into her restaurant. Out from behind her counter she produced my pink bag!

She told us that the police had handed my bag in.

We were overjoyed! Our smiles were huge! We hugged and kissed the pizza woman.

We quickly ran next door to show the tabacchi lady that my bag had been found. She couldn't believe her eyes! As you can see from her bunched up hand in the photo, she was ready to slap both Molly and I upside the head. She wagged her finger at us probably saying, "Don't you EVER let that happen again! Do you hear me?"

We laughed, thanked her for her concern and went on our way with many 'Ciaos' being exchanged. We continued to explore Florence. With me holding my bag. And taking pictures at the same time.

As we wandered the city, I saw a large group of Japanese tourists looking at this building and taking photos. After they left, I went to see what all the fuss was about. I looked up at the coat of arms above the door and snapped this photo intending to do some research on it afterward.

Just then a man came out of the doorway. He looked a little bit surly, so I smiled at him.

He then motioned for me to follow him.

He said, "I want to show you something."

I quickly called for Joe and Molly to join me.

We followed the man into his beautiful courtyard garden.

He said, "This is my home. My oasis. Do you like it?"

Do we like it? We LOVED it!

The building was from the 1300s and Catherine Medici even lived in it at one point in her life.

He offered to take our photo. My only regret is that we didn't get one of him.

We thanked him for his invitation and generosity.

We were on our way.

We couldn't stop talking about the friendly Italians. We had only been in Florence a scant few hours and had met the most amazing people.

By this time we were feeling tired and thirsty, so we stopped at a bar. We asked the man if we could just have a drink and not eat.

(We asked this question because one evening in rural France we stopped in at a half-empty restaurant to have dessert. But the waiter told us, "Ce n'est pas possible."

We looked at all the empty tables. We looked at all the other diners having dessert.

"It's not possible?" we asked. We left before we heard the answer.)

The Florentine waiter laughed when he heard our ridiculous question.

With a sweeping motion of his hands he said,"No! No! Get out of here! You must leave!"

Then he showed us to a table and took our order......

......and then our picture.

I LOVE ITALIANS!!!!!!