No Stopping…I Mean, Window Shopping

One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is the inability to shop and buy things we don’t need. Not that we have some sort of incapacity – it is just another one of our rules: No shopping while in the EU. This is for a few very logical and legitimate reasons: 1) The Euro costs more than the dollar 2) Anything we buy has to be lugged around for the next few months (and risk losing it or having it stolen) and 3) The Euro costs more than the dollar.
Not shopping hasn’t been too big a deal thus far. I see things in windows I would like to have or buy for someone but they are passed with great ease. Well, that is until we got to Florence. Beautiful Firenze. Not only does the Euro make things expensive, but Florence is already expensive and happens to be one of the BEST places to shop in all of Italy, perhaps all of Europe. (Well maybe it rivals Paris, but you get my point.) Anyhow, passing all the beautiful windows and colorful street vendors has NOT been easy. Everything is so beautiful. The dresses, the bags, THE SHOES!!! Oh the shoes, the beautiful jewelry and the embroidered tablecloth I know my mom would love and the leather bag I know my sister would love. (Both of which cost more than our daily hotel budget.) Even the stores that carry only men’s ties are so colorful and so perfectly displayed so that it looks like you are walking into an Italian silk rainbow, makes you want to know someone to walk in and buy a tie for. Seriously, window-shopping has been quite painful. I suppose I should also tell you now that all of this also means, no gift shopping either. At every turn and every street there is a souvenir or a gift of some sort that reminds me of someone at home and we just can’t do it with three months left of our trip. Don’t worry, we won’t forget you at home; but maybe when our US Dollar goes a little further. Right now, everything I see is going to stay right here in Italia. Sorry.