Thirty Days to Discover Yourself...

Their first day in Florence was quite the uneventful one, as ‘The Wickedly Lovelies’ were getting situated in their hotel rooms and relaxed the rest of the day. They were all slightly jetlagged from their long flight and had virtually no motivation to do anything more than wander the hotel or sit in their rooms and converse. They’d gotten two four-bed room so that they could split up without one person being roomed by themselves. However much it reminded them of school trips, they decided it would be easiest and fairest to split up the rooms by gender. The three boys in one room and the four girls in the other. It seemed to work out best that way anyways.

Their second day, however, was much more eventful. While wandering the hotel the previous day, Addison overhead talk of a festival going on that week just outside of town. She told the rest of the group of what she heard while they ate dinner at a little restaurant down the road from their hotel and they agreed that they should go the next day.

The festival was being held in a large park just on the outskirts of town. The sun was shining brightly and the clouds in the sky were a soft white on a backdrop of pale blue. Addison saw that morning how beautiful it was outside and knew what she would be missing if she did not bring her camera with her.

One of the first things that she saw as her and the rest of the friends walked past the ticket booth and through the arch that welcomed them to the festival was about five hot air balloons floating close to the ground and a few more in the air around the park. A sign stood in the middle of two tethered balloons that read in Italian, “Balloon rides €2”. That seemed to be one of the festival’s main attractions, but others included many game booths, a Ferris Wheel, a few smaller rides, and many food and beverage booths. It reminded many of ‘The Wickedly Lovelies’ of a scaled down version of their home state fair.

“Addison, this was an amazing idea!” Skylar exclaimed.

“This looks so cool, Addie. I’m glad you overheard those people yesterday,” Aleksey commented, grinning at his friends surrounding him.

“I am too,” she smiled, taking everything in around her. “There are so many great photo opportunities here.”

“You brought your camera, didn’t you?” Quinton asked, knowing the answer already.

“Of course she did, bro. She never goes anywhere without it,” Clinton said, only razzing Addison really. She didn’t actually go everywhere with her camera, but she did take it with her most places she went. That’s an artist for you. Or more accurately, that’s a photographer for you.

“You know me,” she chuckled, holding up her Canon EOS 7D with her right hand.

“How didn’t you see that on the way here? That thing’s huge,” Sawyer laughed.

“You’re just jealous because yours isn’t as big,” Addison taunted, smirking.

“I know it isn’t. I just have a small little thing,” she laughed back to her friend.

“I’m not talking about your camera Sawyer,”

“Then what are - “

“Addison!” Sienna gasped, giggling. “I always knew you were secretly a boy!”

“Oh!” Sawyer exclaimed, understanding now that Addison was joking about the size of something she didn’t have. “You are so bad sometimes!” The more mature friend laughed. Sometimes she wondered why she actually was friends with these kids because of their immaturity from time-to-time, but then they do things to make her so very glad that she was their friend. Of course, she has her own immature moments - what college student doesn’t? - so she really cannot complain about theirs.

“Anyways,” Aleksey laughed semi-awkwardly, trying to change the topic of conversation. “Who wants to take a balloon ride with me? I want to go up in one.” He was smiling like a little kid that just got a prize for something. Anyone could tell that he really did want to take a ride in one, and who could crush someone’s excitement by saying no?

“I’ll go with you, dear,” Addison smiled. “I can just imagine the shots I’ll get up there. The view has got to be amazing.”

Addison and Aleksey went off towards the balloons and paid the man in front of the mainly yellow balloon, awaiting instructions on what to do. He spoke a little English and Aleksey spoke a little Italian, so between the two men, they worked out what all needed to be said and Aleksey passed it all on to Addison, who’s only other language was Spanish.

The man led them up into the air and revealed to them a whole new sense of the world. Neither of them had ever seen anything so majestic as flying in a hot air balloon. Addison was so taken my the absolute beauty of the whole thing that she only managed to take one picture while in the basket high in the sky. Even then, she was so struck by the view that she nearly let go of her two thousand dollar camera, which would have barreled to the ground and broken into unrecognizable pieces. It’s a good thing she had a neck strap.