Rain Rain Go Away

Salve!

This weekend I adventured off to Verona and I wouldn’t say that I had the best of luck when it came to this trip.  Saturday morning, we woke up in this charming little bed & breakfast that we were staying at, called B&B Villa dei Pini, and were greeted by a plate of homemade almond-flavored croissants and lemon pound cake. We checked the weather forecast on my friend’s iPhone and it predicted that there would be no rain. Then the little owner of the B&B even offered to drive us the twenty minutes into Verona for free. It seemed as if our day in Verona was going to be perfect!

Oh, how wrong we were…

 

We hopped into the car of our escort Guiseppe and we were on our way. Within five minutes of Verona, little drops of water started to fall from the sky. “You know what, that’s fine” we said. We had planned on doing some shopping while we were there anyway, so we would just go into the shops in the morning and wait for the rain to stop. They do have some really nice shopping there: anything from discount shoe stores to shwanky brands like Louis Vuitton and Guess. My friend, Molly, had made it her mission on this trip to find a pair of nice leather boots. And this was her lucky day! She purchased a pair of dual-tone brown knee-high boots and a lighter, shorter pair, causing her to have two paper shopping bags to carry the remainder of the day.
Now, in contrary to our original plan, the rain did not stop while were shopping. It actually just got harder and harder. I was the only one in our group to have any sort of rain gear and it wasn’t really made for a group of four. It was a small, purple travel umbrella clearly made for one person. My poor friends had to resort to wrapping their scarfs around their heads. A very stylish look if you ask me.

 

Lunch time came around and we were more than pleased to stop in a cafe to get out the rain. By this time, we were all wet and cold. The sun dresses we packed for the predicted seventy-five degree weather were not useful in this situation at all. We also took out my friend’s iPhone to check the weather forecast for the rest of the afternoon, but that turned out to just be comical. As we sat there looking out into a torrential downpour, the stupid little iPhone said that it was currently NOT raining in Verona. What a joke!
Once we finished up our lunches, we decided to venture back out into the rain. We didn’t come to Verona to see the inside of a tourist-filled cafe. Hoping to escape the rain, we headed to the Arena. Our plan kind of backfired, because obviously the Arena is outside. We had to climb up these huge stairs to the top in the rain. Honestly, I’m surprised one of us didn’t fall. It was a risky situation. But, we did get some quality photos and through the rain you could still really see how beautiful Verona is.

 

Next, we headed off to Guiletta’s tomb. Is this just me… or is it weird that I visited both the house and tomb of a fictional character? Just saying. Anyway, we get there and walk through this museum that we literally have no idea what it is for. I couldn’t even tell you what it is called. We just used it as a way to escape the down pour. I enjoyed myself though… it had a lot of religious themed paintings and it provided a roof over my head.

 

Now, here is where I think I just started to lose it. We were walking back to the arena square and remember how I said my friend got two paper bags to carry her boots in? Well, paper and water do not mix. The bags started to rip and everything was about to fall out all over the wet ground. Please picture my friend walking in the rain holding her new boots like a baby. Now, I’m a person that when I’m in a bad situation I just start laughing (I get this trait from my mother) and that is exactly what I did. In the middle of the street I just started to have a laughing attack and couldn’t stop. I mean, we were wet, cold, somewhat lost, and my friend was carrying new leather boots like a baby. At that moment, we made the best decision that we had made all day. We got into a taxi and headed back to our Bed&Breakfast, where we spent a wonderful, chill evening eating pizza and laughing about the day.
I can’t say that this was my favorite weekend and we had absolutely no luck on our side. I expect our travel week to be much better, because we should definitely have some good karma in our buckets. However, I did learn some excellent tid bits about travel: (1) Never trust the weather forecast on an iPhone. It lies. (2) Always bring an umbrella or you will be wet and sad. (3) Try to avoid paper shopping bags. In a battle against rain they lose. (4) Finally, if everything goes wrong just laugh. It will eventually make a good story.

Ciao!