Lunch with Warren and Gladys

Although it’s been a rather quiet week for us here in Florence it has also been a most interesting one as well.

It is becoming clearer with each passing day that spring is here – a fact represented in the every-increasing daily temperatures – pretty much in the high 60s and low 70s now -- but also in the growing number of fresh flowers popping up on terraces, balconies and in many public places throughout the historic center of the city.


(photo: numerous "herdii" on the move near the Duomo.)
And of course you can tell it’s spring by the dramatic increase in the number of groups of tourists, or “herdus touristicus”, the two largest subspecies of which are “herdus asiaticus” and “herdus americanus”. They snake along the narrow streets following some unseen guide into the nether reaches of the Renaissance. This is truly an amazing phenomenon and of course quite annoying.

Susan is back in school – she’s such a good student – and continues to work on fashioning her baking skills at home, although not nearly as often as some would like.

Anyway the really interesting part of the week started on Wednesday when at long last we met up with Susan’s “relatives of relatives” Warren and Gladys D. Gladys is the sister of one of Susan’s aunts Fran, and both she and Warren have lived in Florence for some 10 years.

We joined them for a wonderful lunch at their apartment near the church of Santa Croce early Wednesday afternoon – and had a grand time swapping travel stories and our mutual love of Italy.

Eventually the conversation turned to our sharing the same desire to live beyond the cultural borders of where we were born – what some call and I suppose rightly so, being expatriates. In fact, by degrees Susan and I have come to accept the fact that we are indeed “expats”. Certainly after talking with Warren and Gladys, both of whom have been doing this sort of thing for many years now, feel more comfortable about the choice we have made (so far at any rate) to spend whatever time the gods have seen fit to give us right here in Italy.

Toward the end of lunch one of their friends, Laurie a freelance tour guide originally from Illinois but now living in Florence dropped by. (In fact she often works with leading tours for the Chicago Art Institute. A typical Midwesterner she was friendly and very open and although ostensibly she had come by to help Warren set up his new printer she joined into the lively discussion at hand: how wonderful it was really to live in Italy. She is one of those who have made a successful go of it and could easily serve as an inspiration for anyone contemplating a similar move (like us).


(photo: Gladys, Laurie, Susan and Warren.)
We could have easily stayed the rest of the afternoon, enjoying the talk, the wine and just the good-natured camaraderie around the table but Susan had a 3:00 o’clock class (she is such a good student) so we said good-by and headed off back to the apartment (only about a 10-minute walk from their apartment)

As usual I met Susan at the end of her Italian class (it lets out about 8:30 pm) located near the train station and she told me all about her day as we walked home – the only distraction was a young “gypsy” woman lifting her skirt and squatting down in between two large dumpsters along the street near the language school to ostensibly use it as a bathroom facility I presume. (“Zingari” is the Italian word but they are referred to in the media by the less offensive term of “romany people”). Ah yes life in the big city.

How truly luck we are. Which of course leads me to repeat our mantra “So far so good”.

Anyway, Friday we hope to renew one old acquaintance and make a new one when a former associate of Susan’s and his friend come to spend the day in Florence. Should be a blast!

Wish you were here,

Steve