Buona Sera (Damn, I'm Tired)

For a variety of reasons, I didn't really sleep on the plane last night. Unfortunately, staring blankly into space for hours at a time does not seem to be as restful as an actual night of sleep. Still, Husband and I arrived in Italy safely and ready to do some sightseeing.

First, we checked into our mad plush hotel. There are many reasons why I love accompanying Husband on his business trips. Here are four:Our main room.
Husband hanging his fancy schmancy suits up in the enormous closet in the floyer/changing area off the main room.The over-the-top hallway staircase. The whole hotel is super old world fancy. It sort of cracks me up. And yet I am slightly annoyed that we were not given a room with a view of the Arno River. Whatever.

After we unpacked, we headed over to the stunning Florentine synogogue. It is an elaborate Moorish style structure, but no pictures were allowed. Next up was gelato, of course. I led Husband to the gelateria I liked best when I was here last year with Dr. P and Dr. H. It's called Vivoli and it is not far from the synagogue. I had orange peel & chocolate; Husband had hazelnut and chocolate.

By then, we were both fading fast. We wandered around a bit more and by luck (meaning: I got lost looking for it), I found the delightful wood toy shop that I loved last year. We bought our godson a birthday present. He'll be 1 on the 21st. Yea!

More meandering for a while, then back to the hotel to clean up. There's a reception tonight hosted by the Ferragamo family that Husband and I will be attending tonight as part of his conference. Yes, this utterly cracks me up. I was not pleased that I had to pack a nice dress (actually, two nice dresses because there is another reception on Friday at the Uffizi Gallery, which I am mad excited about because we will get to go into the Coorido Vassari, which is this private passage that links Palazzo Pitti to the Uffizi so that the Medici family could go back and forth without having to mingle with the riff raff on the street, and it is not usually open to the public) and classy shoes , but whatever. I just hope I don't fall asleep tonight and/or embarrass myself. I think the reception is actually at the Museo Ferragamo, so that will be fun. There's lots of shoes on display there. Hopefully, I'll get some good pics.