Arriving in the Piazza del Duomo, I instantly had a bit of nervousness when I spotted Him waiting for me…

As always, I was running fashionably late and then some, so I didn’t think that it was my slightly disheveled arrival of which I had become so accustomed, now creating a slight case of the butterflies.  I couldn’t quite pin the feeling of anticipation, maybe it was just how I could feel his eyes on me as I approached, or the confidence that he exuded as he said to me in an almost melodic way of his Italian mixed with British accent, “You’re Amy, right?”  The only thing that kept me from being tongue tied at this moment was my reminding myself that yes, he looked exactly like the pictures that his friends had shown me from their iPhones in London the week prior, and although good looking, he was not particularly my type.

So that’s where Giancarlo and I began my tour of Florence.  Having been there a few times in college, I could skip the typical tourist attractions, and go straight for the good stuff…food and wine.  After all, I was in the company of a culinary expert.  With each stop at stalls within the Mercato Centrale his flirtations grew a tad bit more obvious and had me questioning “How much had his friends told him about me, or was this just the typical Itallian hospitality given to blonde American girls?” Regardless, I’ve always been a believer of  the slogan “When in Rome”, so of course, I flirted back, but much more cautiously, not yet knowing if I really wanted to go there.

A few hours and many more stops later, we had to swing by my hotel for me to send a fax.  Amidst my stressing over this work related issue, he trying to convince me to “just relax”, and our squeezing into the tiny elevator, I must not have noticed his lips suddenly landing on mine until they were there.  “What was happening here? Did I even want to do this?  Well, I guess so, because I’m kind of kissing him back, and what will his friends think of me….OH, WHATEVER!!!!…..,” and that’s the thought process that pretty much summed up the rest of my night.

Our “dinner” stop of the evening was an apperitivo bar near the Uffizi calledAll’ Antico Vinaio Fedra & Daniele.  As if I needed anything else to eat or drink, I could not resist having a little wine with a bite sized crustini or two…honestly, maybe it was more like 4 or 5 .  This place soon became my favorite Florence hang out.

Along the way home we continued to pop in and out of a few tiny establishments to grab a drink of just have an excuse to be closer to one another and practice our PDA skills.   Really, by the end of the night, I don’t think we could even consider the stop off points as establishments, but more shadowed corners of the tiny streets.

Anyways, my massive display of overindulgence that day must not have been too much of a turnoff with Giancarlo, as I was lucky to score a lovely private guided tour of San Gimignano the next day, followed by many evenings lingering over romantic diners , strolling the cobblestone streets together and plenty of “OH WHATEVER!!!!”