"Why Scandicci?"

On Friday night, we were treated to a performance by the UCA choir in a church in the small town of Scandicci. I say small town, since it's the size of Conway in population, but after being in Florence, with a populus of about 5 million, it seems like a quaint little village.

The choir, of course, sounded great. The San Luca Vingone Church was the venue, and I had envisioned a centuries-old, ornate building that was dark and beautiful. Instead, I was greeted with a church that was a beautiful Italian design that was anything but old.

At least the acoustics were what we expected.

The choir did a mixture of Italian songs and American spirituals and sounded beautiful. Dr. John Irwin does a great job with the choir, and the Italian audience was very receptive.

However, it wasn't without a few snags.

For one, we called for three cabs, and two showed very quickly and whisked most of our party away. However, the third one was slow in arriving, and when he did arrive, he did not know where the church was.

He apparently was related to the bus driver shuttling the choir, because they got lost, too.

This after dinner ran long for the group, and a tour guide had to sprint back two miles to retrieve a lost passport of one of the students.

Oh, well. The show must go on, and it did.

After the performance, the choir got on the bus and the church members dispersed to their homes. Three women of the church waited with us while the cabs made their way to us.

After the first cab took half of our group, we struck up a conversation with the women, asking about the town and talking about the places the choir had traveled.

At that point, noting the students sang in Milan and Rome, one of the women asked, "Why Scandicci? Why not Florence?"

We also asked if they had traveled to America. They smiled and said no, with one woman clasping her hands as if in prayer, and said, "Oh, one day."

Which was ironic I though. I had dreamed of one day traveling abroad to see countries such as hers. Why would she want to see America?

Not to put down my homeland, mind you. But to be surrounded by centuries of art, history and tradition, what can be appealing about the land of McDonald's and SUVs?

You really begin to see on a trip like this that while our world seems to shrink every day, it's still a big ol' goofy world to be explored. I envy those with the resources to do it regularly.

However, I still should take the time to learn my backyard better before globetrotting on a regular basis.