Markboro, Kansas
Wednesday, August 28, 1996
Back home again, starry eyed, invigorated from perhaps the greatest of all vacations, I already started planning for the next one, hopefully soon, but this time in February to Sorrento and then back to Florence as our LAST stop instead the first. We left Florence on Sunday, August 25, 1996 for a short train ride to Bologna which is about an hour north of Florence. We stayed at a hotel near the train station for a quick getaway the next day to the airport. We had taken a later train, so we only got to stroll around the city for a few hrs, have some dinner in the "gastronomic capital of Italy". Dinner was good, but our heads were still in Florence, so the afternoon was pretty much wasted. I never returned to Bologna ever again, despite being an hour south in Florence many more times. We did not return to Italy in 1997, but I just do not remember why not, nor do I recall what we did in the summer of 1997, but the plans quickly developed for another visit in February 1998, but that's for the next blog. At that point I tried very hard to gather myself to immerse myself in my very important jobs as high school supervisor and college teacher. When I did return to school and had my first meeting with all the other supervisors, one of them asked me at the conference table how my 3rd trip to Italy went. I told them and someone asked what was the best moment. I thought for a minute and then blurted out, "straciatella gelato from San Gimignano."
