How bout a watch my friend?

Well the inevitable has occurred...the dreaded first week of school has arrived. Luckily, study abroad classes have lived up to their difficulty level. Attendance is a major portion of your grade, teachers normally show up a little late for class, and smoke breaks are not frowned upon. This is quiet a bit different than the day to day grind of engineering classes.

The past couple of days have been a little slow since school started. We feel so comfortable in Florence we have no longer felt the need to be "touristy". Our new past time is finding people on the sidewalk and helping them read their maps, acting like we are pros of course. Occasionally, you run into those tourists that ask you too many hard questions about where they are and where they are trying to go. Easiest solution to this problem in order to not look like a tourist ourself, start speaking a different language, shrug your shoulders, point down one street, say take your first left, and quickly walk away.

We made a new friend today on the streets around our apartment...his name was Paco. We had seen him yesterday and said hello because he was wearing a Lebron James High School jersey. We introduced ourselves and of course he didn't understand my name. I tried to clear it up with the phrase, "Like, trip and fall." He then made a joke saying, "Oh, so are you accident prone?" Good one Taco...I mean Paco. Well today, he said he had a deal for us though. Knowing that this was going to be interesting and probably pretty funny with a hint of danger, we said, "what you got homie?" He said, "I got what you need, what about a watch?" Perfect!!! He had obviously seen my Wal-Mart watch and figured that I needed a new one. We proceeded to move away from the street and walk into a group of other friendly, black (not really important but a needed detail I think), slightly ghetto dressed, street business entrepreneurs (to put it nicely). He introduced us to a couple of his peeps and then proceeded to speak Italian to a jolly man behind a counter at a pizzeria. I thought we might be getting dinner out of the deal...nope...the man only pulled out Rolexes.
He had three, apparently "real" Rolexes, and he even took off his own watch and said it was up for the taking. He also added that his watch is normally sold for around 4000 euros in Florence and never needs batteries...hmmm...the street vending business must be pretty good these days. He handed it to me and it stopped working. Oops, good thing he didn't notice. Well me and scott immediately went into street vendor defense 101. We had rehearsed this for a couple of hours in our room. We of course acted like we were really interested in these watches...Scott even tried one on. I played the slightly hesitant dork while Scott acted like he already had a Rolex and was looking to expand his watch collection. We both picked out our favorites and then it was time to talk money. He kept telling us that he had a good deal for us, but only today, only that meeting...fishy...but we were still interested. Paco said he could give us the watches for 80 euros each, only if we bought two. WOW!!! 80 euros Paco? What a deal! He said that was the situation only today because he didn't have any money. Bad news Paco, neither did we. We proceeded to beat around the bush for a little while, not wanting to aggrivate the posse and kindly slapped ole Paco on the back and said, we'll have our people call your people, or something like that. Moral of the story, what looks too good to be true, probably is really good but how do you feel about buying stolen goods? I'm beginning to warm up to the idea. Unfortunately, I find the touch of metal on skin to be slightly rude and abbrasive. Maybe Paco sells stolen food at good rates...we might be really interested then. Good thing he'll be around for the entire month we'll be here.

Weekend plans...Venice