Would it kill someone to leave a comment?: OH FLORENCE!! (June 11, 2015)

I have to say, this was truly one of my very favorite places of all the places I have been in my life (so far). I LOVE FLORENCE.

80 and sunny all day, got a short lived sprinkle around 530, but we were inside at the time so it didn't affect us.

Part of group went to Pisa this morning, the rest of us went to see David. It's truly amazing to see in person. Pictures below (of course) but it's not the same. Everyone must go to Florence.

Strangely enough, this day is one of my shortest diary entries, despite it being my favorite. I had gelato for the first time (lemon and melon) and did WAY too much shopping. Two purses, a leather coat and a bunch of gifts later and I'm broke. We toured the Duomo, went to the Ponto Vecchio, ate some pizza, had a wine tasting and shopped shopped shopped.

oh wait, don't go away... funny story. Karen's sweet nav skills.

For most of this trip, since I have a hard time hearing, I just make sure I don't lose Karen, because she knows what we need to do. SOOOOOOOO she gets the map and we're off. We decide to find the meeting point before we do anything else. It's a lion or a horse or some such thing in a plaza, er, piazza. It takes forever but finally we find the sculpture in the plaza... wait. this plaza is literally EMPTY. except for the sculpture it is completely devoid of people. this can't be right, right?

Well, despite our careful consultation of the map at every turn, we can't seem to get where we want to go... so i finally take the map and insist on a few minutes to orient myself. Karen's not much for standing around, but at this point, we know we're doomed, so she gives in... turns out, we were holding the map upside down the whole time.

(and in case you've seen my facebook posts or heard the Santorini story, yes, this happened before Santorini and no, obviously, i did NOT learn my lesson.)