Comic stories

Shoes So Wild

Funny Stories of Getting Lost in Italy and Other Bad Decisions

In 1995 he arrived in Florence for his junior year abroad with four years of high school Spanish and about forty words of Italian, most of them foods.

His first host family taped eleven rules to his door, including one about how to blow his nose. He broke every one without even trying. He rode home on a bicycle that wasn’t his.

At his second host family’s house, he accidentally started a war with a pheasant. On Christmas Eve in Prague, a self-proclaimed German baroness made him an offer. In Amsterdam, two men on the street whistled up at his window, and he waved back. In the spring, his host mother left for Jerusalem with the toilet broken. He had to go elsewhere.

Then he bought a pair of cream-and-gold snakeskin shoes with pointed toes, certain they would change his life.

Six stories from one year in Florence, 1995–96. One sitting.

Kindle and Paperback.