#234 Florence
It’s 4 a.m. We are at Florence Airport. The original plan was to drive from Rimini straight into the airport and fly away back to Estonia or at least to a connecting airport (Estonia is at the edge of the world and has very few direct flights anywhere). But it wasn’t to be as our flight was cancelled. I was the first in line to get the news so had to move quickly. I found a bed and breakfast nearby and booked it. I got automatically a rebooking for our flights so stepped out from the mob. I wasn’t stressed.
It’s interesting that we got stuck in a city which also was meaningful for Janne and I. In our first trip, we arrived to Florence by bus as our flight had been to another city. It was very late in the evening. I had booked a hotel which was a bit outside the city center so we needed a bus. At that time, we couldn’t afford a taxi.
I realized pretty quickly that not many people spoke English then. It has changed now. Very few people have time for my uninitiated Italian. I made it a point in every trip to carry a pocket dictionary between Spanish or English and the language spoken at our destination. My boys will never know the adrenaline of translating on the fly with a bilingual dictionary.
My Italian friends have heard this story so many times that I am sorry for them. Standing near the train station, around 11 p.m. and out on the street, I started making up the sentence to ask where we could take the bus 14 that could take us to the hotel. I had done my research before. So I came up with: “Dov’è la fermata del quattordici?” The best part, Janne was very impressed.
These first events were an omen of how our lives together would be. We’ll do good, no stress, living the adventure. I would be my best, even doing what I thought I couldn’t do. And even if we were lost, we always had each other.
Last night as our flight was being cancelled, I just told the boys, “we’ll have an adventure”. Even in difficult moments, Florence has been good to us. I didn’t need my dictionary this time though. Janne would have joked saying, “you don’t need it as you’re almost local”.
