Turkey-Gate '08, Resolved

It's the day after Thanksgiving here in Venice and I should be enjoying my first ever black Friday in Florence, but my girlfriends crapped out on me and the weather is awful, so, I'm watching movies all day instead! I deserve a break, though, because Thanksgiving went SO WELL! I mean of course I was running around like a crazy person all day helping people cook and clean, picking up last minute stuff, setting the tables, etc. I didn't really sit down to eat with everyone because there was always wine to refill or coffee to be made or something like that, but, I was too happy to care. Everything went off without a hitch--people followed my lovely oven schedule, nothing exploded or caught on fire, all the food tasted great, the flowers Mom and Dad sent looked amazing on the tables, people were very complimentary, etc. After dinner, we had the concert, which was just amazing. I sometimes forget that I live with such talented people! As if this already wasn't a strange enough Thanksgiving in the sense that I had to organize it for 60+ guests, we decided to go out afterwards. I guess that's the one upside of Thanksgiving in a country that doesn't celebrate it--EVERYTHING is open! We all had a great time mostly because everyone was exhausted, but relieved that the dinner and concert were over. Plus it's fun having new faces to join the group (various people have family in town). Still, it felt more like a big dinner party and less like a major family holiday, mostly because it's my first Thanksgiving in my entire 22 years not spent with family!

Wednesday was also crazy (as I like to say, until dinner yesterday, I hadn't sat down in 48 hours). It started when I accidentally woke up at 7am (which is a feat of nature based on the extent of the house party the night before). I wasn't supposed to leave until 9:45 with Tom and Brian to get the turkeys from Rialto, but, they were not so enthusiastic about helping and I was anxious, so, I decided that I could handle 40 pounds of bird on my own as long as I had a rolling cart. I walked to Rialto dragging the cart and began to realize they were setting up the acqua alta elevated sidewalks and thought to myself "hmm, what could make THIS day more fantastic? definitely high water." Normally I legitimately love acqua alta and will go out looking for it, but, it was going to throw off my plan . Luckily the vaporetto was running as usual and I dragged the turkeys from the butcher to the boat and took a quick ride back to Casa Artom. Later a few of the girls helped me take the butcher turkeys AND the turkeys from the army base to the restaurant that agreed to cook them for us. (I guess I never updated that the girls made it to the base on Tuesday and got 3 10lb turkeys?). We took them to Taverna San Trovaso, where they immediately greeted us with a slew of Italian, the only phrase I understood being "TACCHINO!!" After some debate, they sent us to Ristorante San Trovaso around the corner, so we headed that way. At Ristorante, we met one of the most devastatingly attractive Italian men ever (a guy who works there) who was also very excited about the turkeys and called the chef out. The chef decided we needed to go BACK to Taverna, so we dragged our body weight in turkey BACK to the first location--highly comedic. But, the turkeys were off my hands for at least 24 hrs and I was happy! The rest of the day was a blur of cooking and cleaning and preparing and by the end I was exhausted but dragged myself out with the group anyways.

I can't believe how little time I have left in Venice : ( I have a ton to do before I go, so I'm off to watch a few movies and then do some shopping if it stops raining!