Florence is Fun!

Thank you everyone for your tips and advice. A special thanks goes out to Penny for her very funny anecdote about her experiences in Rome. I am having more success. Thankfully my friend Stephanie has had some rather serious digestion issues in the past so she was over prepared for my needs. It actually has been kind of fun ingesting lots of fiber products with the anticipation that there will be some serious repercussions. Fun for everyone!

My mother would also be interested to know that I have been able to practice my Spanish while we are here. We've run into several Spanish tourists, but the best part is speaking with Stephanie's boyfriend Marco. For those of you who don't know, Stephanie is one of my best friends from high school. She has been living in Florence for the past three years working for NYU's study abroad program. She was actually supposed to be a bridesmaid in the wedding, but timing and ticket prices were against us and instead she is graciously hosting us in Florence. Anyway, her boyfriend Marco is still learning English so we are speaking English with him most of the time. However, he recently spent a few months in Spain and picked up Spanish very quickly. I know Spanish and Italian are very similar so it shouldn't surprise me that it would be very easy for an Italian to pick up Spanish quickly, but I've been studying Spanish for about 15 years and still struggle with basic sentences. Not fair! Last night, Marco got a little tired of speaking so much English so we moved over to Spanish and I was able to practice. It's been great. In one conversation we have bits of Italian, Spanish, and English floating around. Mike always manages to throw in a little Yiddish too for good measure. Ciao!