Friday was Ray's birthday so we combined that with some Christmas shopping and headed to Gainesville.  No, it doesn't come under the same "big city" category as perhaps Manhattan or Paris....but hey, when you live on an island with about 800 residents trust me, it's big.  I love going to Gainesville.  Sure there's loads of traffic and crowded stores, but it just has a neat feel to it.  We'd never been to the Oak Mall there and I really enjoyed it.  Lots of great shops.  And making it feel even more Christmasy was our weather.  Contrary to what some of you northerners might think....we actually DO get downright chilly here in Florida.  Sometimes.  And Friday was one of those days....overnight it was in the 30's and didn't go above the low 50's during the day.  And just to prove it, here I am complete in coat, woolen scarf and warm sweater and shoes.

Besides showing you we really do get cold here, there's a reason I'm showing you a photo taken next to our car.  Can you guess why?  Ah, but you have to wait till this Friday when I'll share the answer with you.  The department stores were all decorated, as you'll see below.

And after we finished shopping at the mall we headed to downtown Gainesville which I really love with all the restaurants and neat little shops.  We found our way to Amelia's so I could treat Ray to some Italian food for his birthday lunch.

I love the ambiance inside the restaurant.  Very authentic Italian, right down to the waiter with the accent.

We arrived a bit late for normal lunch time and a bit early for dinner, so you can see above we had the place to ourselves.  The food was superb.....Italian bread with oil and herbs, salad, wonderful wine, Ray had spaghetti and meatballs and I had tortellini.

And no trip to the big city is complete without hitting Starbucks for that ride home. 

Enjoy your Sunday.......And I'll see you tomorrow.