Our family dinner
Dan taking a bite of some good Tuscan bread.
Marco and Michela cooking up some good eats
Smallest truck in the world
Michela, Martina, Me, Marco and Paulo. 
Me and Ponte Vecchio
Dan and Leta with Ponte Vecchio in the background.Day 9 Shopping in Florence
Slept well last night except for Dan’s cell phone ringing three times with someone from Montana calling him..Feeling much better today. I think I’m over the hump and on my way back to normal. We got up at 8:30 am to get ready to catch the 9:30 am train to Florence. There is a little train station about 500 meters from my cousin Marco’s house. They do not sell tickets there but the train stops for passengers. Martina bought our round trip tickets for us last night in Pistoia so all we had to do was validate them in this little yellow machine that punches and marks the time on the tickets. The train arrived on time and we found a couple of seats in one of the cars towards the front of the train. The train makes several stops on it’s way to Florence. The total time for the trip was about 40 minutes. We know our way around Florence pretty good so we headed for the underground passage to cross the street by the train station. It’s much easier and there are shops to look at as you walk. I stopped and bought a water…2 Euros for the walking tour. We started walking towards the Duomo and stopped in several little shops along the way. I was looking as some Murano glass items in a few shops. They had some beautiful hand made one of a kind glasses that were cocktail size. They were about 49 Euros each. Very expensive but very beautiful. There were many, many beautiful vases, necklaces, picture frames and much more. I love to look at all the beautiful glass from Murano. We continued our trek and arrived at the Duomo after about 15 minutes of walking. There were a lot of people there, which is very normal for this time of year. We notices several tour groups there also. They now give everyone in the group a radio with a head set and the tour guide speaks into a microphone to everyone. I though that was very cool. We took a lot of photos and video and then we headed off to Ponte Vecchio. There were more shops to stop at and check things out. We stopped to take some photos of Ponte Vecchio and then I stopped across the street and a street vendor. I saw some white belts that he had and my white belt that I brought on the trip was starting to come apart so what better place than to buy a new belt than in Florence. I found one that I liked, but I also found a little coin purse that I liked that I also bought. Then I saw some little purple braclets and of course I had to have a few of those. They were woven thread and will go great with all my purple attire for school. From there we continued to walk towards Ponte Vecchio. We stopped for a few photos and then started to walk toward the Mercato for more shopping. Along the way I stopped in a few shops and bought a few gifts. Don’t want to give it away so I’m not telling what I bought. I will tell you that at the Mercato I also made a couple of great purchases and got good deals on them, so I was happy. We decided to start the trek back to the train station and catch the 2:30 train back to Servalle where my cousin Marco lives. It took us about another 20 minutes and we were at the train station. Dan checked the train schedule and we only had about a 20 minute wait for our train. It was right on time too. We boarded the train and within 15 minutes we were on our way to Marcos. I took a little nap on the train and before I knew it we were there. We decided to head to the IPERCOOP or supermarket to pick up a few things. We also wanted to go back into Ponte Buggianese to see if my cousin Augusto was back from his vacation. We went to Ponte irst and it was 3:45 PM and he was not there. Dan asked a local what time he would be back and he told him 4 PM so we waited the 15 mintues and then went to his jewelry shop. He was there and of course was happy to see us. He does not know much English so we were dependent upon our Italian to get us by. We forgot the dictionary in the car so it was all by memory. We told him we were going to Elba and he told us that he had just returned from there yesterday. He told us about the ferries and which one to take and also had a ferry schedule in his car for us so that was great. We were leaving the next morning for Elba so having that information really was helpful to us. He invited us to dinner after we get back from our little mini trip to Elba and Sorrento. I told him we would come by the store when we returned from our trip. We headed to the IPERCOOP for some shopping and then we stopped to top of the gas tank in the car for the trip to Elba. When we got back to Marcos it was about 6 PM and no one was home yet. I headed upstairs for a little rest and I think I hear Marco come home about 6:30 PM. I headed down stairs about 7 PM and he was getting his BBQ ready for dinner. He uses wood for the coals so he had the fire going. I’ve attached a few pictures of the BBQ for you to see. Nothing like we have in the US. Paulo, Marco’s younger brother was coming over for a family dinner. He arrived about 7:30 PM and brought some sparkling wine. I think we finally sat down to eat about 8:30 PM. The eat much later than we do because they do not get home from work until sometimes after 7 PM. It cooled down and we had to put on jackets. It was very refreshing to feel cool for once. Of course Dan didn’t need one! We had a really nice dinner, BBQ chicken, Steak and ribs with awesome Italian break, tomatos, cucumbers and wine. For dessert we had watermelon. The eat a lot of watermelon! (see pics) It was after 11 PM when we said good night. We had to go pack to leave for Elba at 8 am the next morning. It took us until about midnight to finish..Good Night!
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