Our family went to Italy in 2008 for our parents 20th anniversary. I remember a lot of things from Italy. The food was amazing. I had strawberry gelato every day we were in Rome. It’s why I still know the Italian word for strawberry, fragola. I remember being scared and proud when I used the metro by myself but three memories always stand out for me.
Our First day in Italy, right after we arrived at the convent where we were staying almost everyone wanted to take a nap. I couldn’t sit still even if I tried so my mom and I took a walk. We just picked a direction and soon we were walking uphill in this park. As we crested this hill the Colosseum came into view.
It took my breath away. Just the sight of it made me realize we were really in Italy, that I was the farthest away from home that I had ever been. That moment sparked my love of travel. My next two memories were in Florence.
I don’t remember where we were walking to but the street we were on a lot of street vendors. Most of them were selling counterfeit purses laid out on drop cloths. Suddenly, I heard a commotion behind me. there was a cop chasing someone with a cloth full of purses on his back. I’ve never seen someone move so fast as all the vendors gathered their cloths on their backs and took off in different directions. I don’t think the cop caught anyone, there was too much chaos with all the vendors leaving. As we continued to a plaza a few streets over I saw a van full of police watching soccer on a tv inside the van. I thought that was hilarious. The next day the vendors were a few streets over from where they were yesterday. They were all a little on edge and there were two guys walking around that were probably lookouts.
The memory I think of the most was when we went to the Boboli gardens. It was so fun. Tess and I ran all over.
We were supposed to meet at the entrance of Pitti Place. The entrance had this large archway and just as Tess and I got there it started to rain. Everyone near the entrance was huddled in the archway to avoid the rain. Our new friend was among them.
I think Tess fell in love with this cat instantly. She named him Gary, I think after Sponge Bob’s snail. We probably only had 15 minutes with Gary but we were both sad to leave him.
