"If you want to destroy my sweater...
So Weezer says all you have to do is hold this thread as I walk away. My sweater didn't unravel in Italy but it did disappear.
It started on our first night in Florence. We got to our apartment (yes, we stayed in apartments rather than hotels) in the late afternoon. We had read about a good restaurant that we wanted to try so we set out from the apartment with our keys and started to explore the city. After about an hour we headed to this restaurant called "Il Latini". As we rounded the corner we saw a group of people huddled around a doorway. Bad sign. We found that the restaurant was already full about 30 minutes after it opened and all these people were waiting for a table. And when I say "waiting" I mean that there was no list with names, no line, no order...just a group huddled outside the door staring at the seated patrons inside eating delicious food. My friend and I decided that we had nothing else to do and this place was clearly worth it, so we decided to wait. We learned a few things... 1. we could tell the tables inside were family-style seating...we were going to sit next to strangers. 2. i really didn't want to sit next to the silent grumpy old men who were standing next to us. 3. the local sitting at the bar inside had the biggest nose i'd ever seen. for real. like "roxanne"/steve martin big. the picture doesn't capture it, but check it out:
So during the HOUR we waited, one of the waiters kept bringing out free glasses of white wine. Two glasses down, we were finally ushered inside where we were seated with, you guessed it, the two grumpy men. Turns out this was the best thing to happen to us all trip. Jerome and Mario were 50 or 60 year old Parisians. The minute we all sat down their frowns turned upside down. After the introductions (and my already tipsy demeanor) they thought it would be great if we all got drunk. So with a steady supply of red wine always on the table, the alcohol started flowing. A quick note about the restaurant...it was the type of place where the waiter just asked if you felt like some appetizers...if you felt like pasta...then meat...etc. My favorite type of place. As everyone got more and more drunk, a few things happened. Our waiter clearly was loving our table because we were fun. And, more importantly, our French friends began to tell some funny stories. Clearly these two men were gay, but mid-way through the meal, Jerome felt the need to whisper to my friend, "you know, Mario and I are homosexuals. We have been together for 25 years." Ahh, adorable. He then proceeded to tell us about his trip to San Francisco in 1970 where he bought a lovely "glass decoration" that turned out to be a bong that some hippie helped him smoke his first weed in and then he drove around in a pink cadillac all night where he thought he was flying. Imagine that story in a broken drunk French accent. Our sweet dinner party:
The night carried on, the volume got louder, and the dessert limoncello came. The Frenchmen were tired so they got their bill and left. The owner (typical big Italian guy sitting in the back corner) pulled our waiter over and gestured towards our table. Out came another shot of limoncello...and grappa...and muscat. My god. This is where everything gets very hazy. Somehow someone took about 30 pictures of me and my friend. Most people tell me that it must have been me, holding my arm out. I don't believe it but it may be true. There were also pictures of us with our funny waiter, Alessandro. Equally awesome.
Turns out we stayed until closing but the best part was when the bill came. We celebrated because although we had drank and eaten more than our French partners, our bill was half the price. Wow. Sometimes it's awesome to be a woman. At this point, I stop remembering things clearly because I have mixed too many types of alcohols. I know not to mix but apparently that rule didn't follow me to Italy. My friend is totally used to mixing and she can handle it so, while she was drunk, I think she was aware. As the restaurant was closing, our waiter and some of the other waitstaff invited us to a bar where they were getting a drink. Sure, why not? Well, I'll tell you why. Because I probably didn't need to add two rum and cokes to my beverage mix. But I did. I remember three things total from the bar portion of the night. 1. I was freezing walking to the bar so I put on my sweater but it was hot in the bar so I took it off. 2. I yelled at the Italians for thinking Cameron Diaz was hot because I screamed that her face was full of acne (not my proudest moment). And 3. I abruptly got up from the table at some point, walked outside and crouched in some building doorway for about 5 minutes because I was so dizzy. Not sure why I didn't go to the bathroom but there you go. I went back inside and basically grabbed my friend and said I had to go. She obliged and I left without saying goodbye to these people who had just bought us all these drinks. Oh well. My friend says she grabbed my sweater from the table and handed it to me. She thinks I tied it around my waist.
From there we realized we had to get "home" to an apartment we had never walked home to before. Ever. Guess what? We got lost. Big time. God knows where we were but I wasn't making sense. I grabbed the map from my friend yelling about how great my sense of direction was and proceeded to lead us in the complete wrong direction. My friend eventually got us home and in door #1 off the street. Door #2 that lead into our floor was not as easy. Of course we both had to go to the bathroom and it was 3am and the goddamn key wasn't working. She tried it many times, I tried it many times, and to no avail. Goddamnit. I was done so I sat on the stairs and told her that she had to knock on the landlord's door upstairs. I believe I demanded it. After realizing we were going to have to sleep in the stairwell, she knocked on the landlord's door. Down he came, picked up the key, and immediately opened the door. Shit. We were idiots. (Obviously). We thanked him, I apparently drunkenly told him that our internet wasn't working (at 3AM?! What was he to do?!) and I fell into bed.
When I woke up at 1pm the next day, I was so so so goddamn hungover it was not funny. I couldn't leave the apartment for hours and my friend had to go out to get me juice and fruit. The most drunk I'd been in 10 years of drinking. And the saddest part... I couldn't find my sweater. Dammit. I had dropped it in our 40 minute quest to find home. My favorite favorite black sweater that I had had for 8 years was now part of the Firenze art scene. Son of a bitch. Still, it was WAYYY worth it.
