A Little Fun…Girls Night Out in Italy
Florence is an amazing city with a lot of art and history that I spent several days exploring with Helen and Jenn –and although we like to think of ourselves as high brow ladies, we couldn’t pass up the chance for a girls night on the town. Of the several nights we stayed in Florence we sampled the local markets and cooked up a storm in our own hostel kitchen, making some really delicious meals with the local ingredients from Florence’s Central Market (they also had an amazing! dried fruit vendor) and topping the meals off with a flavorful local wine.
As our days dwindled though we thought a nice evening out on the town was definitely called for. I picked up a new dress at H&M at Jenn’s prodding (I think she feared I was going to wear my dressy-kurtah out…which I was…) and we all donned our dresses and even put on a bit of makeup.
Splurge Dinner in Florence - and we're all gussied up!
Luck wasn’t exactly on our side though because it was gusting wind by the time we made it the 20 minute walk into the center of town and we were all forced to do the really classy shuffle/walk/dress-clutch move as we sought out a nice place to enjoy our last evening in the city. Jenn ranks restaurants by the presence of cloth-napkins…and by those standards the place we scurried into to beat the rain wasn’t precisely on target with our plan of a cloth-napkin establishment…but it had great people-watching positioning and the food smelled great.
A shared bottle of wine later and we were all content with our tasty dishes and ready to head down to mingle in the moonlit crowds strolling along the Arno River and across the Ponte Vecchio bridge.
We couldn’t resist a mini photo shoot along the way as we passed a block of funky mannequins:
Ponte Vecchio is suffused with romance in the evenings…local street artists playing heartbreaking 
love songs on their violins and couples strolling hand-in-hand with gelato and besooted smiles on their faces. It was spectacularly pretty…and only a touch depressing so we wondered on for the evening.
On the way back, we hunted down a gelateria to cap off the evening the Italian way. This is where it gets pretty funny…the three of us peruse the gelato cases and Jenn’s makes up her mind first –she loves apple flavored gelato and orders a small, two-flavor cup for Euro 4 – that’s a bit pricey for a gelato! But, thinking nothing of it I indicate that I want the same size as Jenn’s pick out my flavors…and before I can stop her the woman plops a sugared waffle chunk into the cup…
“Cinque Euros per favore.”
Five euros?! Ok…that small piece of waffle costs Euro 1? Fine. What choice do I have. But five Euros is definitely a bit much for a small cup of gelato.
Helen has spent this time also picking out her flavors. Before I can send a warning her way the woman plops a waffle on hers as well.
“Nove Euros per favore.”
Helen, who had already taken a bit of her trio of creamy deliciousness nearly choked on it and Jenn and I stood there googly-eyed. Nine euros. Seriously! That’s nearly US $14!
I really hate being “had” in foreign countries…in fact it makes me really mad. But at this point, all we could do was choke back the laughter and Jenn and I proceeded to gently poke fun at Helen for accidentally ordering the nine euro gelato. To her credit, she did eat and enjoy every single drop of it!
