Rest and Party

The month of November will be a little different with regards to how I start my blog.  I LOVE to look at old pictures and have a knack for remembering dates and little details, but you already know this if you have been reading.  So, for November, I want to do a series of “One Year Ago Today”.  November 2011 was the first time I ever went abroad, and it was right here in Italy!  That was a very special month, and at the time I was not sure when or if I’d ever be back to Italy; though it was more of a when of course! 

So, One Year Ago Today, I was first exploring the city of Florence.  We had this day off from school, and it was fun to walk around and get my bearings!  See blog here: http://dreaminginitalianthistime.blogspot.it/2011/11/ive-eaten-ive-prayed-and-ivewellyeah.html

Today in Italy, I got up and had OATMEAL for breakfast….MUCH different than one year ago!   I cleaned some more, hung clothes on the radiators/glass things over the radiators so that they would dry, etc.  I did get out and go to the store to get some water, yogurt, lunch meat, and stopped at my veggie guy for some fresh broccoli and tomatoes.  I tried to go to the bakery that had the good bread, but it was closed for the holiday!  I did stop in another grocery store that had two kinds of milk, and I think I’ve found the equivalent of 2%....it isn’t skim, but it’s better than the whole milk!!  So with my bag loaded down, and my arm starting to ache, I headed back to the apartment.  I climbed the stairs and unloaded all of the groceries. 

I sat down to work on my next lesson, and I worked for awhile.  I ate lunch, and then packed up to head to the hotel for about an hour.  Massimo really is kind of a creep; I am sooo looking forward to having my own internet.  I played around on facebook, updated my blog, searched for some things for my lesson, talked to April for a few minutes on facebook chat, and then headed home to take a shower and get ready for Lilla to come get me to go get Nick from the train station, and then go to the party! 

When I talked to Lilla the night before, I tried to tell her that Nick’s train did not get in until 5 o’clock, but she insisted on picking me up at 4:15.  When we arrived at the train station, we discovered that Nick’s train did not get in until 5:30.  So, we decided to leave, and Lilla took me on a short tour of Quattromiglia (small town nearby), and she showed me their University.  When people don’t stop at stop signs…it scares me…and speed bumps are not intended to be hit at full speed…it hurts!!  When we returned to the station, we still had about 30 minutes, so we had some fruit juice!!  The peach juice was sooo good!! When it was closer to his arrival time, we walked out to the platform, and Lilla saw some people that she knew. 

When the train arrived, I told Lilla to look for a very tall person; she then spotted Nick immediately after he disembarked.  I was excited to see him and gave him a quick hug, and we were off to the car.    Lilla was taking us back to the apartment and would not return for us until 8:45…my first clue as to how long this night would be.  Poor Nick was working on like 3 hours of sleep because he was with friends the night before, and Italians stay up LATE!! 

So, we spent our 2 ½ hours talking.  We talked about Italian driving, football, Italy, all of our friends getting married and having babies, traveling, the Greek systems at our schools, our Universities, etc. etc.  Before we knew it, Lilla was ringing the bell to say she was here to get us.  I had chosen to wear a longsleeve “pink” dress and brown boots.  Lilla tried to convince me earlier to wear some sort of red dress, but all I could think of was a sleeveless dress…too cold! 

When Lilla picked us up, she was dressed very well and in all black.  She looked beautiful!  Nick and I got a huge kick out of all of the stop signs that she ran on the way to the party.  Italians do not seem to pay attention to things like stop signs; nor do they respect the rules of the left hand turn.  When in Italy, if you are turning left, you simply ease your way out until traffic stops for you, and you get your way. 

When we arrived at the party, in the hills of Castrolibero (after Nick saw the outside of the school, etc), we met some of Virginia’s family out in the front where we parked the car.  The group we met immediately asked if Nick and I were a couple and commented on how beautiful we each were.  Italians are so sweet!!!  When we said that we were not a couple, they said we should be because we are so beautiful. 

When we walked in the apartment, the apartment of Virginia’s brother-in-law & sister-in-law, there were SO MANY PEOPLE…and the numbers continued to grow!! When we first saw Virginia, I was shocked.  She had on a beautiful black, strapless dress and her hair was curled.  She looked beautiful and so different (clothing wise) than I normally see her!!  She said that tonight we would be speaking in Italian.   Fine by me…I had Nick for an English outlet and semi-translator if need be.  Nick is wonderful at speaking Italian…one day I hope to be.  Virginia hugged me and told people around us who we were, and that I was her American daughter.  We met soooo many people that I could not remember names or how they were related!!  We mingled for a while, met some people, and then we met Virginia’s sons; I thought they resembled her! Her son Paolo was very quiet and shy, but Niccola (Nicholas) was very outgoing; his girlfriend was really nice too!!  Probably 90% of the people there were dressed in black and Lilla said that this was because they consider black to be an elegant color.  Niccola took a few minutes to realize that I was working with his mom and that was why I was there; he said he does not talk to his mom that much; I suppose Virginia is not a mammone.  

We enjoyed some um…well, fresh is not the word…so, we enjoyed some air out on the balcony because it was getting so crowded in the apartment.  Not too long after we walked outside, we noticed that others were coming out with food.  So, we went to get in line for some food!  We ran into Virginia and she reminded me that she cooked the food.  This only made me MORE excited to try it.  We got in line…and thus began a Uniquely Italian thing..we got jumped in line like 10 times, and by people who had already eaten appetizers.  We even got jumped by people who we told we had not eaten.  Only in Italy!  Getting in and sticking to a line is a quite foreign concept I believe. 

Just prior to appetizers, we were privy to the surprise that Virginia had told me about the other day.  In a big box, was a man dressed as a woman.  They introduced it all I Italian, so I had no clue what was being said, but I already knew that the point was Franco (Virginia’s husband) and his brother would think that it was a beautiful woman for them!  The guy came out of the box and it was hilarious.  He was a good drag queen actually! He sang some song that Nick recognized from one of his favorite terrible movies, Trolls 2.  It really was funny, but I wish I could have understood the other. 

Annoyed, so it is still the wrong direction...this is the guy though

Appetizers were amazing…we missed the bite size pizza things, but we tried these breads and had a traditional Calabrese dish of pizza rustico, which is bread with meat and cheese in the middle, but no sauce.  Apparently it is named that because it was before they would make sauce.  While we were sitting there eating, or finishing our appetizers, the first course came out.  It was homemade lasagna.  I am still amazed at how they cooked for SO many people.  Nick got a piece of lasagna and we split it…amazing.  We just sat and talked to each other and to others.  Nick is great at Italian, but me, not so much!! I understood most of what was said to me, but I am still struggling to answer in complete thoughts.  Lilla sat with me for a while, and Virginia’s cousin who spoke to me in Italian, but if I really did not understand, she could give me clues in English (she speaks wonderful English).  During conversation, the second course, which was meat came out.  I had one piece and it was good! It was similar to the meat I had at Lilla’s house, which was like a beef  stuffed with other stuff; these had cheese and a bit of meat.  I cannot remember the name for it. 

While I sat with Monica and we found each other on facebook, etc. Nick was talking to Virginia’s son Nicola about football, soccer, and all other sports.  I was super impressed with Nick’s Italian!  Another lady came up to talk and said that I should meet her daughter.  She gave me her daughter’s cell phone and such!  So, I was hopeful that I would soon have friends to spend time with!  Meanwhile, on the food table, they were serving fruit.  Mind you, we started with appetizers around 10, so it was already getting pretty late. 

Now comes the REALLY good part.  A DJ guy, with a laptop and small sound system started playing music.  Thus begins the dancing.  It started with just a few people dancing.  Virginia started out and they did songs like the YMCA, which Nicola, Virginia’s son made fun of, and then “I will survive.”  I was sitting with Nick and telling him how I did not really want to dance to this kind of stuff.  He said, “it’s only a matter of time before they come get you!”  A few more songs passed and I videod Virginia and Lilla dancing, and they are both AMAZING by the way!! Lilla was so light on her feet and has amazing hip action going on!  I will try to insert a video at some point.  The DJ was playing Italian and English songs.  Lilla eventually spotted me and came to scoop me up out of the chair.  Nick was right, it was only a matter of time.  I twirled and danced with Lilla some and then Virginia.  Nick eventually got up and voluntarily joined in with the dancing.  It was not really my kind of dancing, but it was fun! They were so much fun to watch and they had me dance with them some!  The DJ played a bazillion songs from “Grease” and I was so excited.  He saw me singing and tried to get me to sing into the mic...”um Sir, NO!!!” It ended up being SO MUCH FUN!!!  They did Italian style group dances…some that were really funny…one was just doing actions to verbs that the song called out!  I took some pictures, but mostly video! It was fun to let down my guard a bit and dance.  It is not my fave style of dancing, but Rockette style is not really popular at parties.  Part of what I always adored about the Rockette style was the uniformity and the precise moves (I know…totally against my creative movement thesis ideas).   

After a good 45 minutes of dancing, the cakes came out.  There had been some small dessert things on the table, but at 12:30 am they brought out the cake and champagne. 

Bro-in-law, Sis-in.law, Virginia, Franco (V's husband)

The cake was delicious, and very moist.  The icing was light, cold, and sweet!! Virginia made it herself, and said that she uses various liquors to make it.  It was really good!!  While we had dessert, Monica made plans to have pizza or something with me and Nick on Saturday.  At this point, Nick and I were fading.  He was going on about 3 hours of sleep and I was just plain tired.  We sat there watching the others slowly leaving, eating some more, playing with the wig of the guy who dressed in drag, and some smoking cigars inside (YUCK!!!!).  Nick even tried on the wig!!  Lilla came and asked if we were ready to go, but then left us.  She came back about 30 minutes later, and we gave hugs and kisses all around and headed out. 

We got back to the apartment at like 2.  I got ready for bed, and Nick did the same.  We actually ended up staying up listening to some of Nick’s favorite music, the blues.  I do not know that much about it, but I did recognize a lot of his favorite artists.  We just sat around and listened to music and talked until 3:30ish. 

I was so glad that Nick was here and able to go to the party with me.  I had an amazing time at my first Italian party, a surprise party for Virginia’s husband’s 60^th birthday and his brother’s 65^th!  It was nice to have the English refuge though; someone to share my thoughts with.  There was only one moment when we were standing in line, and getting jumped in line, where we started talking behind our plates and I quickly realized that we should not do that because they would think we were talking about them because we were being secretive.  Really, we were just commenting on how we kept getting jumped in line.  I am so grateful that Virginia thought to invite me to such a wonderful thing!  There are no words to describe all the little things we experience…ahh, but I can say that this was my first experience with an Italian house that did not have a toilet seat!! What is that about?? I love Italy!