last day in Florence

 Last full day in Florence and the one place that I had planned on taking Oscar while we were here is on the agenda for the afternoon.  Boboli gardens are attached to the Pitti palace across the river and I figure that this is a place that Oscar can run and be free and do things that

 we normally aren’t letting him do because it’s too crowded.  The students and John and Rachel hit the Uffizi in the morning and Oscar and I hit the leather markets.  I’m able to find one gift, but can’t find a belt for John and can’t find an “Oscar” soccer jersey for Oscar.  

 Someone has to have this guy’s jersey available because he’s a star in the premier league and in Brazil, but not here in Florence apparently.  We also head back to H and M because the shorts don’t fit well, but there is no size close to what we need, so I’m going to hope for an H and M in

Paris to exchange them at.   John makes fun of me for thinking that I can buy something in Italy and exchange it in France, but it’s the same store and it’s all the EU anyway now right?  I think that it should work, but I’m most likely being naïve.  The other option is for John to lose weight,

  which probably won’t happen on a trip like this.  Another good nap in the afternoon, but the radar is showing thunderstorms coming our way, so we offer the students that want to go to the gardens a different option, but it’s sunny when we leave the hotel, so we ignore the radar and

 head for the other side of the river, where it unleashes holy hell on us.  We have the tickets for the garden, but while it’s lightly raining, we have to hit the bathrooms to change Oscar and that’s when the thunder and lightning hit.  John and I are able to stay under the palace overhangs and watch it happen, 

 but he’s thinking about where his students are caught out in it.  It lets up a little and we head into the garden to find out that you can’t get on the grass and Oscar will not do anything, but play in the mud, puddles, and pick up the pea gravel while in the park.  We’re able to see a group of students on top of the 

hill and they wave to us as another long streak of lightning arcs over them and I think that John is going to faint dead away at this point.  We hit some of the highlights that we remembered about the first trip here, but the rain is dampening everything and the grotto that is so cool is closed for renovation.  The students say that the island is closed for renovation also, so we just

 get a picture of Venus behind bars and head back to the hotel with a bad taste in our mouths from this experience.  This is the first time that John has hit really bad weather though on this trip and I think we’ve been lucky so far.  Hopefully, this will be the only time that it happens.  John is taking another group of students to the restaurant tonite and Oscar and I are eating on our own.  I take him 

across from the hotel to a cute little kids clothing shop because I can’t resist looking and the prices are unbelievable, but he is running out of pants and Europe has been colder than I expected.  The lady in the shop is showing me the cutest outfits in the world that she is taking out of bags to display for me and Oscar and he’s hugging on her, charming her and I can’t not get a pair of pants at least.  So, I pick some that he can wear now that I know he doesn’t have at home and they are his Italian pair of khakis that are very chic.  Apparently the sale that was advertised in the window also pertains to the cute clothes in bags, because they end up only 

costing me 15 euro, which I was happy to get away with.  We then go to the big toy store next to the hotel and I think that Oscar is going to be so excited, but he realizes that the door opens when you walk toward it and that’s all he cares about now, walking out the door that lets him out.  The kid is amazingly unlike what I expect a kid to be like.  He would rather go up and down stairs repeatedly instead of running across grass, he would rather go in and out of a door repeatedly instead of look at toys….I’m going to blame John’s genetics for this stuff, because I think it’s just weird.  I know that in a few years, I won’t be able to go past a toy store without crying and moaning about needing something and I will most likely long for the days when the door was more exciting to him, so I’ll shut up about it.  We head to Barbecue again because this cold, stormy day has made me want the beef plate that John got the other night.  Of course they remember Oscar and he gets his picture taken with the staff and we get extra potatoes under the meat for Oscar, who won’t eat it at all, so more for me.  I asked the owner and chef why Barbeque and he said, “I don’t know”.  He states that he doesn’t even like barbeque and there is nothing on the menu that is barbeque, but he likes the sound of it.  I have a great dinner of peposa (?) and convince Rachel she needs the same thing and she and John and I gather in the room to chat some about the day’s events.  They finally received confirmation that there would be someone to pick us up at the airport in Paris tomorrow to take us to the hotel.  Way to leave it until the last second Ferris, but at least it’s done.