Thursday, June 7, 2007

Caught In The Rain



The weather in Florence has been very beautiful with hardly no rain. Recently, in the past few days, we have had a heat wave, which I have not enjoyed. The temperatures have been in the 90's, but I haven’t used my air conditioner yet. It is not too bad in my apartment and there is still a slight breeze stirring, but really, getting out during the day and walking is tough.


Today it was cloudy when I left for the grocery, but still hot. Not as hot as when the sun was out, so I felt that getting to the grocery and back with my sacks of goods would be tolerable. As I started out of the apartment, it began to sprinkle, but the clouds did not look menacing, and the weather report had not called for rain, so I continued on.


I got to the store and finished my shopping only to find that the bottom was falling out outside. I made my way out of the store and under the covering outside to wait for a break in the rain.
I waited a little while before it slowed and decided to start out. The slowing was actually the calm before the storm and by the time I crossed the street and found new shelter, I was drenched!


In Florence there are many vendors who sell scarves, sunglasses, purses, etc. These vendors are usually not licensed to sell, so walk the streets with their goods in bags, and pull them out only to show people who they think might be willing to buy. When it rains, umbrellas are the item to sell! While I was under the shelter, a man approached me and tried to sell me an umbrella. He spoke Italian, but I could tell that he was not Italian, by the way that he spoke. He had a very heavy accent of some type, but I did not know where. Instead of trying to sell me an umbrella, he told me that I looked beautiful in the rain, and asked me to go and have a glass of wine with him. Now please! I am soaking wet, I have two bags of groceries and I look like a drowned rat, ready to enter a wet t-shirt contest! I desperately wanted a glass of wine, but his timing was way off.


He persisted with me, offering to carry my groceries to my home and give me an umbrella for a gift. I refused all of his offers and we parted when he saw a group of tourists with limited umbrellas! The rain stopped and the temperature dropped substantially! Umbrellas are put away and we are back to sunglasses and scarves. Ciao!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Karen, I finally got to view your blog today and it is really exciting to see what you are doing.
It is noce to see somebody have a dream and see it through.

My wife and I will be homeschooling the oldest girls next year and were just previewing a fictional book that takes place in Florence in the middle ages. I can't wait to show her your pictures.

All is well here, we had our fourth child, Zane in November. He is growing fast and looks like he will start crawling any day.

Things are good at work, I like working in Ga. and our results are really solid. I hope you decide to come back. In fact, I have a claims rep. opening right now. Interested?

Keep in touch.

John Hogan (Jhogan@progressive.com)