I met my parents in Florence, Italy and it had been 7 months without seeing them. Needless to say, it was very movie-scene-esque with them walking down the platform to hug their (favorite) daughter. And then after five minutes it had been like I'd never left them. That's how life goes with people you know so well, I suppose. It doesn't matter how long you leave them for, things can fall back into place. Within minutes they were calling me bossy, bratty...the usual truths.
We took a tour of the Tuscany region since I think Florence is not the coolest city and I didn't need to visit it again. Here we are in Siena where they have Il Palio...those big horse races every year. The track is really cool and they said they put matresses along some of the walls for if the jockeys fall off. They also said they don't care about the jockeys because a. they aren't local and b. the horse can win with or without its rider.
Still in Siena, inside the zebra cathedral. They also have statues of all the popes that they could fit up around the ceiling. The guide told us that they reuse the same 5 faces and just slap a different name on it seeing as how they don't know what all the popes looked like anyways.
This is the place mom really wanted dad to see. Out on a big hill in the middle of Tuscany is a farm where they make tons of organic products and serve a mean lunch. We ate really well and I bought some of my favorite almond biscotti in the world. I have been thinking about them since I went there 2 years ago. I told M&D to pose for this picture and "pretend like you like each other" and when they did I said "not so much that you block the view though". And this what we got.
Still at the farm, we wandered around and pet some cows and dad inspected all the plants. He is convinced he is going home to buy an olive tree and grow grapes. Mom will stomp them (although she will argue otherwise) and we will soon be in the olive oil, wine making business. Don't put it past him. He's already looking into getting olive trees shipped in to grow in his greenhouse at work. Expect a blog post of that in the near future...
Here in San Gimignano, a city dad could NOT pronounce. However, once I just went to spell it I had to check to be sure...it DOES have a second G it's just not pronounced. Sorry, dad. I forgive you. We saw these towers that wealthy families built and lived in to avoid attacks and diseases. They used to throw their trash in the streets etc. My family would totally have been into that if we were a wealthy medieval Italian clan.
Hiding out in the shop of the "Best Gelato in the World". I had it a couple years ago and I disagree with this title...so much so that I even passed up on eating it this time.
I am posting this just as proof of how good looking my parents are.
At the leaning tower of Pisa we bought lots of tilted things but avoided taking pictures holding up the tower (see the girl on the left in the blue). We did get to take a little train ride around the city and see some other leaning buildings as well. Terrible foundations and yet they insisted on building. Hey. I bet the tourism industry is glad they did.
I had bought some little things at one of the shops and then decided I wanted more. BUT. The further I walked, the more expensive they got even though it was the exact same stuff. Dad gave me some words of wisdom. "Tell them 'hey- I just got this for 4 euro down there...that's all I'll give you for it'. or better yet 'hey i just got this for 1 euro two stores over...that's what I'll give you for it." And you wonder where I get it from.
My momma and I have very few pictures together. So even the bad ones are going to get posted. Here we are in front of the Cathedral and bell tower in Pisa. This was before the weather got really nice...we had to head a bit more south before shorts and no-scarfs were acceptable.
All of these cities we saw in one day and were quite tired by the end of it. We ended by eating dinner in a great restaurant in Florence and surely we ate some gelato, though I can't be sure.
Before I had met my parents, they were in Venice for a couple days and mom was texting me "We've been here 8 hours and dad has had gelato three times." He did, however, defend himself. "You'd be eating one and couldn't even finish it before you passed another gelato store!" True. So my BEST guess is that we ended this Tuscany tour with some gelato.
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