The alarm sounded at 04:00hrs, but I did
manage to get 6 hours of sleep my final night in Firenze. Kendra and I went out for a farewell dinner
the night before at my local hangout – I Ghibellini,
and my final walk was down to the River Arno at Ponte alle Grazie. I was clutching the lock I had used at the gym. There is a tradition in Italy of young
couples fixing locks to bridges to show their undying love for each other. On
many bridges, you’ll see long chains of locks locked together, often with names
and dates painted on them. While I was
not in love, I thought it fitting to attach my gym lock to the Ponte alle Grazie as a sign that
Florence had captured my heart. It was the one physical momento that I had
lived there – existent on the bridge until the locks get cut off, or maybe not. Either way, it was my way of saying goodbye
to the city.
At precisely 05:00hrs, my cab arrived
and 20 minutes later, I was at the airport for a 06:30hrs flight to Frankfurt
and a 10:30 flight to Toronto.
Everything was going smoothly until we got to the end of the runway and
the steering computer for the front wheels malfunctioned. Back to the terminal
for a reset, and we were off – 1 hour behind schedule. At this point, I was resigned to the fact
that I would probably miss my connection to Toronto. But Luftansa pulled out
all the stops in Frankfurt for connecting passengers to Toronto and San
Fransisco, and we had our own little shuttle bus to the departure terminal.
With 30 minutes to spare, I made the
Toronto flight, which was full and uneventful and the nine hours seemed to fly
by (pun intended!) It did not really
feel like I was going home. Rather, it
felt like I was going for a visit to Toronto to see all my friends. Passing through the airport felt strangely
new, and remarkably familiar, which is how I felt for the first week back in
Toronto.
Barb Track had offered to pick me up,
but a severe thunderstorm had closed down the airport shortly after we landed. Nobody was going anywhere, and nothing was
getting unloaded from the airplanes including luggage. Three-and-half hours
later, things started moving again. By this time, I had sent Barb home (since
she’d waited long enough – thank you Barb!) and I was sure I could deal with my
luggage and bike by myself and get home safely in a limo. I finally made it back to my apartment at 6pm
- 20 hours into the day.
 |
| Fresh off the plane - July 31, 2012 @ Zucca with Lawrence (front left) and gang |
The day, however, was not done. My good friend Lawrence Bennett was celebrating
his 70th birthday that night and I could not miss the party. So, I showered, changed my shirt and off I
went for celebratory cocktails. Cocktails
turned into dinner at Zucca, an Italian restaurant uptown at Yonge and Eglinton. By this point I didn’t really know what time
it was, but it was sure fun to see my friends again and regale them with
stories from my Italian adventure.
