We are off to a very early morning. After we loaded back on the bus, we went back to Venice. Today was St Marks Square and Cathedral. Here we were told that if a pigeon “drops” on you, it is good luck. I tell you, with the number of birds here, it is hard to avoid. Chris wanted to sit in St Marks Square and get a photo. Almost as fast as she and Teresa sat down, a waitress was right there (and seemed annoyed when they did not order anything). Afterwards, we went on a tour in a Venetian glass factory. They demonstrated how the glass was formed, how color was added (who knew your add gold to glass to make it red?). And of course, it ended in a gift shop. The shop would ship to the US, which made the decision easier. No wants to lug around glass cups and decanters across Europe, even though they are “unbreakable”. Add to that we still have a good deal of traveling to go. Chris and Chad joined us and we went out on our own. We are in search of the “Rialto Bridge”, the oldest of four bridges across the Grand Canal. We didn’t find it but we did have a good time walking through the streets the small alleys and plenty of shops and good gelato. I kept an eye on the time knowing that we had be back to the boat or be left behind. As we wandered around looking for this bridge that Chris was interested in finding, our group kind of got turned around. Chris and Chad looked at each other and then Teresa and then myself wondering how we were going to make it back. I said don’t worry about it and let them back pretty much the way we came getting to the boat just at the right time. I’ve always had an uncanny sense of direction. My impressions of Venice is that it is a nice to visit but would not want to live there. We left Venice in search of Florence. After a couple of hours in the bus,  Laszlo interrupted either sleep or conversation with his verbal “ding dong“ over the buses intercom. He was always doing this, giving us little facts about this town or that site. At the time, we were arriving in Florence. Our bus drove around the city stopping at a few places to see things like the beautiful three colored marble church. We then drove across the river to Michelangelo park. We saw lovely panoramic view of the city, with a two-tiered bridge the city center and the dome of the cathedral and prominent view. We then went to our hotel. It was another disappointment. No tub again (Teresa likes her baths). Plus the small and barely functioning elevators made waiting to get up and down the chore. It was Saturday night, and we found that most shops were closed. Teresa needed some cold medicine, so I walked over and knocked on Chris and Chad ‘s door. Chris was done for the day but Chad said he would walk around town with me to see if we can find something for Teresa.  We stopped in the hotel lobby and the desk clerk was nice to point out that there was a grocery store behind the hotel. We went in expecting to find medicines. They did not have any, not even aspirin. It seems that health (beauty and baby stuff) is controlled by the pharmacies. We were told there was a pharmacy down the street and we headed that way. As I said being Saturday evening, many the shops are closed up or closing as we were walking by them. We spotted a sign for the pharmacy and it was not lit. As we walked up, the gate was down, the lights are off and it was definitely closed. I looked over at Chad and said something like there has to be one around somewhere.  About that time a local gentleman was passing by. No, I don’t speak Italian, but I did take Spanish and high school and the languages are relatively similar. Course don’t tell that to an Italian, or a Spaniard. So I stop the gentleman with an “excusie”, and asked “Donde es la pharmacy?“. He looked at me a little puzzled and pointed to the one not even half a block away. Of course that’s the one it’s closed.  I could remember the term for open or closed, so I started play playing charades, gesturing what I hoped was “open” and “closed”. I made a few hand gestures, it was Italy after all. The gentleman stopped for a moment again looking puzzled. He stood up straight and pulled out a newspaper from under his arm and started flipping through the pages. It seemed like he was now ignoring the “ignorant Americans”. After a few moments, I looked at Chad who was also puzzled, turned to the man and said “Gratzi”.  He stopped flipping through his paper and said “uno momenti” and then went back to his paper. A moment later he exclaimed “oh”, and a true Italian fashion made a show of folding his paper over and over until he showed us what look like a schedule. He pointed to the table and said something about pharmacy. He then spoke broken English and directed us saying, “how you say … 250 m” and he pointed in the direction and then gestured right. I asked him if he meant to turn right and he nodded he then said “another 500 m just passed the au  to  mo bile shop”. Chad and I took off in the direction the gentleman that told us. More and more people were in the streets/sidewalks. It was then we noticed many of them were entering the churches that we were passing. Ah,  Saturday night mass!  So we make the turn and continue walking and find a pharmacy it is indeed open. I look around and find things like baby formula baby diapers general creams and tablets like aspirin. Stuff that you would find in a health section of a grocery store in the US. A person who walked in behind us walked up to a reel and picked a number. I noticed several people waiting so I grabbed a number as well. When my number was called, we go up to the counter and ask for some cold medicine. The person doesn’t speak English at all. And I started with my charades again, showing what I could for Teresa Symptoms. The pharmacist saw the show that I was doing and stepped forward. He spoke a little English and in the end got us some “acetaminophen” and other names I recognized. I did not need a translator for that. We went back to the hotel and called it a night.