Oh y'all. This weekend. It was epic, crazy, intense, amazing...there are just not enough adjectives to describe it. It all started on Thursday when housemates' friends started to show up. I lost count, but there were at least 7 to 10 non-Casa Artom residents hanging out here this weekend, which was fun, but made for a really interesting dynamic (especially because only 4 people traveled this weekend from our group, but it felt like more). I hung out with the kids after the finished class for the weekend, then Kayla and I walked McKinley as far as the gelateria on the way to the train station (she was headed to Florence), making it basically the first time I'd eaten in a while, which was nice. After that, we took yet another trip to Billa to load up on fruit, eggs, etc for the singles breakfast for dinner extravaganza. I caught up with Alicia and showered while the girls made the dinner (I was forbidden from helping, can't complain), then we sat down to such an amazing meal. Fried potatoes, eggs, fruit salad, pancakes (regular AND chocolate chip), SYRUP (if you know me at all, you know how much I miss syrup), mimosas (with red oj...my favorite). Then there was a pretty intense house party, but a handful of us weren't really up for a big beer pong tournament, so we sat around, talked, and then I crashed in Rhianna's bed until the house party ended (since they play beer pong in the dining room, trying to sleep in my room is entirely futile, but Rhianna's room is a lot further away). I slept like a dream, but somehow ended up with a slew of new mosquito bites running from my collarbone up to my chin...they match really well with the ones on my forehead...
Friday Kayla and I got up and decided to put to use our sweet 80 Euro gym memberships, so we walked allll the way to the gym and she ran on the treadmill while I attempted a weight machine circuit, then we did some painful ab stuff. My stab at Italian weightlifting was hilarious. All the machines are pretty different, so the guy who works in the gym would see me head to a new machine and immediately come over and adjust it for me, no speaking (because, see, he spoke very little English and my Italian isn't exactly fabulous, so he goes "weight?" and I said "44" and that was that). I'm sure I looked like a moron, but I have that perfect level of sore going on right now...I'm determined to get back in shape! After that, Kayla and I walked to the train station (very close to the gym) to see what was up with the planned train strike (to see if we could still hop a train to Vicenza to shop). The info people told us the fast trains were running and that we could catch one in about an hour and a half, so we practically jogged home, got cleaned up, picked up Ana, and jogged back to the station. Shopping while upset is not the best life plan, let me tell you. I don't regret anything I bought, but I probably could've been a little more conservative...doesn't help that Ana and Kayla were being super nice and telling me how great EVERYTHING looked...! I got 2 scarves (fun colors), a brown bomber jacket from Zara Kids, a perfect tweed blazer from H&M, and a black going out shirt from H&M. Oh and something that is described in 3 words that can make every girl's eyes sparkle. That's right. THE perfect little black dress. There are just no words, but essentially, it's seemingly simple but has seams and a fluted hem that make the dress look like I was meant to live in it. Clearly I'm still a little pumped. We got home in time to make some dinner while the rest of the group went out for Chinese, then we all eventually met up in Santa Margherita. Which is where I was told the phrase that is the title of the post. The bartender at Cafe Blu (our 3rd stop, complete with live jazz, I should add) saw me having an internal debate with myself (another glass of wine? no? yes?) and goes "lady, don't think, it's bad for your health." Brilliant. Words to live by, I say. And so I stopped thinking and good Lord, I had a great night. Kayla and I spent most of the night making funny faces at each other as we had stupid thoughts and immediately cracked up. The walk home included being approached by a few cruise workers who "just wanted to hear English," Kayla and I waiting for Eugene outside a bar and singing "Eugene Shyu, where are YOU," and Kayla and I having to stop and sit down multiple times because something or the other was just that amusing...don't worry Mom and Dad, I behaved myself.
Saturday Kayla and I went to Bar da Gino and ran in to Kelly, Kelly's guest Jenny (other guests' names included a Jen, a Jennifer...on top of the Jen and Jenny we ALREADY have in our group), and Caroline. We all talked about our Friday nights and exchanged stories over cappucini and brioche, which was priceless. Kayla and I watched some tv and rested (we were all still a little tired from Friday), then Mom helped me edit my personal statements. Then ALLIE GOT HERE! I was so happy to see her that I basically ran out and tackled her when she got here. We caught up, then had dinner with a big group (cooked by Zach, Rhianna, and Rhianna's guest Virginia), went to Doge for gelato, then came back to get some sleep. On my way upstairs, I was talking to Stephanie and Virginia and Jen (all guests of various people) and I had been trying so hard to figure out why they looked so familiar. Then someone said Stowe's name and it was like this instantaneous light bulb for all of us... we had met at the theater house this one unfortunate night back in January. We spent about 20 minutes (I'm not even exaggerating) exclaiming over what a coincidence that was...I love how small of a world Wake can be!
Today we got up kind of early to meet Ana's new little Italian pal, Giulio at the train station at 10:30ish to go to the wine festival (called Ombra Longa)in Treviso (he studies in Venice, but is from Treviso and was supposed to basically hold our hands through the wine festival since we knew NO details). Well, we go to buy our train tickets while we wait only to learn there's no train at 10:56 like he told Ana...it's at 11:56. And so we go ahead and buy the tickets, but see no Giulio, so we go wandering around until 11:30, then go to the platform to wait (assuming it'd just been a mistake). No Giulio. STILL no Giulio at 11:53...so we decide we're going to get on the train and see what happens when we get to Treviso...worst case scenario, we have a great lunch, poke around town, and come back. Whew. If only that'd been how things went. Instead, the train gets progressively more packed as we approach Treviso, and we get let off in Treviso with hundreds and hundreds of people. Downside...I kind of like personal space. Upside...we were now surrounded by people who knew what to do and where to go. We stumbled upon the main square where we bought a "kit grande"...an apron, a plastic wine cup, a spork, and a map of the 20+ "stops" on the wine festival tour. Having no clue what to do, we just kind of wandered, bought our first glass of wine, and got some tiny little sandwiches. Then we started up the wandering again and I probably won't do the scenario justice, but I'm going to take a stab at describing it. So, first of all, there are basically zero tourists...the only English we heard was our own...AMAZING. Second of all, I don't even know to what Ombra Longa can be compared back home. People were in big groups which were denoted by things like specially made tshirts or crowns of leaves or airline lifejackets or chain mail costumes or pope-esque hats (I'll post pictures soon). And each group would often just burst in to some sort of patriotic sounding song in Italian. And random people (and by people, I mean guys) would stop us about every 20 steps to say something they deemed flirtatious (not like we knew, we don't really speak excellent Italian) and we'd play along then move along. Sometimes people would want to just do the whole "chin chin/cheers" thing and so if we were out of wine, they'd pour us a tiny bit of theirs and we'd cheers and on we'd all move in our different directions. We made all sorts of friends. Just as we were getting ready to leave, we ran in to Giulio and his friends. Giulio and one friend were tied together with some sort of plastic stuff (apparently they were looking out for each other today) and they were all very friendly. They brought their own (very strong) wine and were more than happy to share (slash make us drink some). Oh and I met a friend named Daniel who lives in Vicenza while I was in the line for the porta potties...stealthy little bugger put his number in my cell phone (don't worry, y'all, calling him is pretty far down on my to-do list). Finally we had to get going because Allie is still a little jetlagged, I'm exhausted, and Ana has 2 exams within the next 24 hours. Nevertheless, it was SO MUCH FUN...we spent the day walking around wearing Ombra Longa aprons, eating Italian appetizers, drinking wine out of adorable cups (that fit conveniently in this little pocket sewn onto the apron), taking pictures (I have approximately 200...yeah...), and just being all Italian. After we got back, Allie and I ran in to (and joined) Caroline and Charlotte at San Travaso, which was so funny... it's just weird to be eating with my old group and new group all at once and the waiters were totally trying to get Caroline and Allie's attention, so we got a pretty nice discount and then we met a couple who has a daughter who goes to Wake (and knows my friend Tristan)...such a small world.
Anyways, my apologies for this little novel I've got going on here. Hopefully it was at least entertaining. It was such an unexpectedly great weekend...I'm so pleased and I'm glad that it seems like Allie is having fun so far!
Oh and the picture is Allie, our new friend Giaccopo, me and Ana in our amazing aprons. Blame our other new friend, Sergio, for the whole not quite horizontal quality...
No comments:
Post a Comment