After reaching the heart of Florence our tour guide then led us through the rain for about ten minutes before we finally entered a building.

I had no idea where we were, but it was dry inside and the place looked pretty important.

Before being allowed to formally enter this building however, we would be subjected to a long security line, just like at the airport.

People streamed through body scanners in single file, one after the other.

The tour guide handed everyone of us a set of earplugs and a receiver.

The ear plug was for your ear, and the receiver could be clipped onto a belt or purse.

The receiver was about the size of a chunky iPod, and served to receive radio signals.

How it worked was that as you walked along, you would be able to hear your tour guide talking to you and explaining the area around you and what you were looking at.

After five minutes of wiring the cords through my layers of clothing I was ready to begin the tour.

But not so fast…

As I approached the front of the security line I was asked to remove my coat, hat, two cowls, and my purse that was intricately woven around my body to prevent theft, and then place them in a plastic tray. This was an all too familiar scanner that I had been mercilessly subjected to at all the airports. The only difference was, that I was completely prepared at the airport for this task. In fact, I could do it all in less than fifteen seconds and that would include of course, removal of the shoes.

Now, if that wasn’t bad enough, I was then instructed to put all my electrical devises into another plastic tray.

I could feel my temper rising as I undid the wiring for the earphones, and got out of my coat, cowls and hat. I dumped them all into the tray, unamused.

they even took away my umbrella.

Then I scourged my purse for the camera, iPod, and placed them along with the headset from the tour guide into the plastic tray.

Good thing that I didn’t have any knitting on me.

All the while, there were throngs of people pressing forward. As I passed the bored security guards all I could think about was keeping within eye contact of both Jen and Frank.

Once I proved that I posed no threat to the museum, I was free to put myself and my belongings back together.

Not an easy task when you’re trying to keep eye contact on your tour group so you don’t lose them. There are so many people here with various tour groups that it would be too easy to get swept up by another tour group and then you are totally lost.

After hastily reassembling myself, I felt like a walking wedgie.

By this point, I was feeling pretty grim.

Little did I know that things were about to get even worse…

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