The Leaning Tower of Pisa is a gauntlet of gaudy souvenir hawkers and littered with people taking that same vacation snapshot. Neither of which is necessarily a bad thing. As long as you are aware of that going in, you’ll be fine. So after enjoying the lesser known Pisa Church and Baptistry my sister and I made our way out of the area when one of the many souvenir sellers called out to us, and his wares caught our eye.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa
He had fashion watches, jewelry, and knock off purses. Fairly standard stuff, but we hadn’t had time to shop so far in this trip since it had been right after Christmas. But neither of us had much in the way of cash, so I decided to try to barter. He wasn’t having any of that…at first. But as my little sister looked through his stall, he started to chat her up. Asking her where she was from, what her hobbies were, and just gushing about America in general. My sister was a young high schooler, and was obviously weirded out. So she was evasive and eventually walked away.
But the guy wasn’t going to give up. He told me he desperately wanted an “American Girlfriend” as he wanted to live in America, and that my sister was beautiful. He then offered to give me the “family discount” if I gave him my sister’s phone number and email address.
I looked back at my sister, and I turned to him and nodded. I got my discount…he got a fake email and phone number. Fair trade I think.
Travel Missteps is an every-other week series on how sometimes part of the journey is making mistakes and getting lost.
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