Laundry and this weekend

Well, I'm trying to catch up with my blog. This week has flown by and I realized that I didn't even put anything up about the Florence or the rest of Zia's visit.
We did go to San Marino. It was beautiful. If it had not been overcast I'm sure we would have been able to see beautiful vistas from the mountain top. The down side was that because San Marino is tax free, it was like a big shopping mall. I would like to visit it again one day.
We went to Florence last weekend. Monday (June 2) was a national holiday so it was tough finding a hotel, but we did. Florence was crowded, I couldn't imagine what high season would be like. If felt weird to have so much English (that is American English) spoken in Florence.
The exchange rate is hurting everyone. Even the vendors at the leather market near the Medici chapel said that they had to raise prices and couldn't haggle as much because the almighty dollar is not what is once was and so we are not spending as much.
We had some great pizza! Good company and interesting adventures.
Francesca and I hung out for the week and this morning we did laundry. I will forever be thankful for my in-home laundry facilities. It costs about $17 to wash and dry a large load of clothes. Don't even get me started on the cost of taking laundry to people who do it for you!
This weekend we head to "Giglio" which is an island off the coast of Tuscany. Francesca is referring to it as the island of the Skog (if you have not read that children's book, it's a good one). Three of Joe's classmates are going with us. We drive to Siena tonight and then one to Porto Santo Stefano in the morning to catch the ferry to the island.
We are going at the invitation of a very nice woman named Marcella who Joe met through a woman in Slow Food Charlotte. Marcella is also a chef who teaches at the Epicious Culinary School in Florence.
More on this trip when we return.