Assertions by Tressa: My Florence

After we said good-bye to Mel and Joe Thursday morning, Scott and I headed out to do some site-seeing. Scott has never been to Florence, so I knew exactly what I wanted him to see. We started by walking down along the Arno, saw the Ponte Vechio and took some pictures. Then we headed toward the Piti Palace. I have been waiting to take Scott to the Boboli Gardens that are a part of this amazing Florentine palace for almost 9 years!

When I was at Harding University in Florence (HUF) in 2000, we toured the Piti Palace and its Boboli Gardens. Back then, I was blown away by

the beauty of the gardens. I decided that it would have been a great place for someone to ask me to marry them. I even took a picture at the particular spot I liked with a space left in the picture for whoever would be my future husband. I knew it wouldn't happen of course; that did not become my expectation, I just thought it was a romantic place for something like that to happen. I was overjoyed when Scott asked me to marry him two years later at his apartment in College Station, Texas. I have wonderful memories of that moment and I wouldn't change them for the world, however, since he turned out to be the man of my dreams I hope you can understand why I would want him to see the Boboli Gardens -- the setting for the proposal of my dreams. It was double special because our 5 year anniversary was less than a month behind us. As I requested of him, when we reached a spot that, as best I could tell, was the spot from my picture Scott asked me to marry him again, and I gladly said yes again! Yes, I requested it. I didn't expect him to know just how much I wanted him to say those words to me in that spot. Now I have a new romantic memory of the Boboli Gardens.

After our romantic moment we walked around some more and enjoyed the general splendor. It happened to also be hot as well as sunny, so soon we headed back into town to find some lunch and some shade! On our way, we ran across the "Piggy" Market where Scott also got to rub the nose of the boar.

After lunch it was just too hot to go anywhere else outside, so we found an Internet cafe, and effectively killed the afternoon. After our final Florentine meal we headed to the train station to catch our night train to Berlin. If we had only known then what an adventure that would be...