Samantha and I were talking yesterday on the way to school and, thinking about her trip to Europe coming up next summer, she asked about how much free time they might have.
So, in June of 1988 it was my second go-round with the EF Tour experience, but the first time into Italy. It was our first country of the trip and we'd just left Rome and headed into Florence on something like Day 3. For some reason, the bus stopped as close as it could to our next destination, which was an Italian Leather factory because there was a soccer game going on and the streets were absolutely packed. So we weaved our way to the place, which I still can't figure -- we're in Florence and we're here? And then, we were stuck here. Apparently we had to wait out the soccer game because the bus had been waved away by police and we had no ride. My buddy by that time was Mindy, who was actually one of the chaperone's niece. She and I had already wandered the whole place three times over before we noticed one of the workers watching us, or rather, staring at Mindy. He finally worked up the nerve to come over and start talking to us, probably because we'd finally just sat down in the middle of the shoe section where he was working. His name was Simone and he was charmingly Italian. Simone was quite smitten with Mindy's golden ringlets and told her as much before suggesting perhaps, after he got off work, we could meet him so he could show us the city?
Now, we are seventeen years old and in Florence and this young Italian guy is hitting on Mindy. Of course we agreed to meet him. The saddest part of this story is that, in the subterfuge of slipping out of the hotel that evening after dinner, I left my camera behind and I have no pictures of our whirlwind night. We took a taxi to the Palazzo Vecchio and the Fountain of Neptune and there he was, waiting just as he said he would be. We walked the streets and helped him practice his English. We ended up later in the night at a little "English" pub called Kiyuka (which is still around!) where they had a projection screen t.v. and were showing cartoons in Italian. It was surreal.
I also remember, vividly, walking through the streets of Florence at night, passing all the people, the cobblestones, the old buildings overhead. We returned to the Palazzo and took a taxi back to the hotel.
As we pulled up, Mindy's aunt and another chaperone were standing at the front doors of lobby, arms crossed and we were completely busted. I'm not sure if it was because Mindy was a relative, or because these ladies might have remembered what it was like to have been 17 and in a foreign country, but we didn't get shipped home. Perhaps because we hadn't gotten ourselves murdered, they let us off with a tongue lashing. And it was completely worth it.
(Note to Sammi -- always make notes on the back of your stuff! And don't leave your camera behind!)
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