week four: pastries, pants, and other such problems...

29 September 2009

Walking around a city as old as Florence, you’re bound to notice the churches and monuments, statues and sculptures, and pretty much anything else you’d find pictured in the pages of a history book… and once you get past all of the beautiful art and striking architecture, the next thing that’s bound to ctach your eye is the shops… actually, I bet anything, if you were in Florence, that’d be the first thing you see… oh sure, the Duomo is amazing, but when you’re walking down the street labeled by locals street of 100 stores, or crossing the Ponte Vecchio (lined from end to end with jewelers…) the only thing you can focus on is oh! Look at that window!! It’s the shop-a-holic’s dream… seriously, it’s problematic on a student budget… you try walking down the street with leather jackets and gorgeous couture practically jumping out at you, and then tell me how easy it is to avoid… I mean, really, they keep the doors open to these places, and put saldi signs up, enticing even the tightest purse to come inside… then, of course, you go in and realize, oh sure, 50% off of €1000… for a pair of pumps… sigh… this is not the place to be a poor student, much less a poor music student with no hope of really ever making the kind of money where a pair of €500 pumps is no big deal… I can still window shop :) and try things on… knowing full well that I cannot, nor will I be able to in the foreseeable future, purchase anything not being sold by one of the creepy street vendors… yes, that is an alternative, but being harassed by creepy salesmen more concerned with looking through your clothes than selling you any is not really how I plan to spend my shopping time… I’ll settle for teasing myself with one of a kind dresses and Swarovski necklaces :)

If the clothes, shoes, and bags were not enough (which, believe me, for most of us, they are!) then you have the other shops… the shops that we’re all more likely to get in trouble for… the pastry shops… pastries, and fresh bread, and fresh meat, and gelato, and cheese, wine, olive oil… pick something fattening, and don’t forget to pick up a nutella-filled croissant and fresh foccacia before you head home… I mean, really people… you walk anywhere and you can’t help but smell the fresh baked bread, or homemade pastries begging you to pick them up, take them home, which, will eventually lead to going next door and buying a larger pair of pants to replace the ones that fit before walking around Florence… Aren’t you supposed to lose weight when you walk everywhere? Hmm… yah… anyone who thinks that obviously hasn’t walked around Florence…