A trip to the coast

A few of the best meals of the week, and maybe of my trip so far, were actually not even in Florence. For the weekend, Nick and I hopped on the train to Livorno to visit my Giorgi family relatives. I’m still not sure what their exact relation would be to myself, but they are relatives of my grandma Anna’s. I was excited and a little nervous to meet them for the first time, even though Mom and Dad had visited them a couple times way back in the day when they traveled through Europe. I knew I was going to be in for an enlightening and food-filled weekend. So when we arrived on Saturday morning, Giorgio picked us up in Livorno and drove through the hills and along to the coast to their small town of Castiglioncello. The view from the car was dream-like, looking out at the sea over cliffs of green and rocky landings. Giorgio drove like a demon, and I remembered that no one really pays attention to traffic laws here in Italy. When we arrived at their home, his wife Stefania and her sister Dahlia greeted us with big hugs and two-cheeked kisses and started handing Nick plates to bring to the table before we even put our bags down. First things first in Italy – meal time! They served us a long meal of antipasto, bruschetta, ravioli, then dessert cookies, then coffee. But not before pouring everyone a glass of wine – at noontime! They real know how to have a meal here. And afterwards, to walk it all off we took a leisurely trip down to the beach and through Castiglioncello. Through dinner and the walk, we learned how to best communicate with one another. Giorgio speaks surprisingly good English and spent most of the time talking with Nick, while Stefania spoke mostly French with me and both spoke to me in some Italian. I used as much Italian as I could to respond and ask questions, but it was actually easier speaking with Giorgio in English. Stefania was bent on speaking French with me, as I’m sure she doesn’t get to use her fluency very much, and since she knows that Mom speaks it well I think she assumed I would too. My seven years of French had somehow gone out the window though when I starting taking Italian classes at GW. I spent most of the time just listening and nodding and saying “oui” or “si” to show her that although I couldn’t find the words to respond, I did in fact know what she was talking about usually. It was an amazing trip, almost like a game or a puzzle trying to figure out what everyone one was saying and using a mix of three languages to communicate. When Matteo, their son, came home Saturday night to have dinner with us, his well-spoken English added another element to the fray. During a four-hour dinner, Matteo would tell stories to Nick and I in English but repeat sentences to the rest of the table in Italian, while Stefania would clarify to me in French. It was very interesting to hang out with Matteo, as he is exactly my age and also studying at university here. As an engineering student in Pisa, he had lots to say about life in Italy, what it’s like to study at his school, what he does for fun, and also had questions for us like how do Americans view stereotypes of Italians, what music do we listen to, and why does our entire nation stop everything to watch the SuperBowl. Matteo told us he likes ACDC, Guns N Roses, U2 and Led Zeppelin. I was shocked to hear these names, as they are some of my favorites too and I realized how close in interests American students are with Italians. He likes watching rugby and American movies on TV, he is an avid sailor (even competing around Europe in races), and knows lots about American politics. Even Giorgio said of the disliked Italian President: “Berlusconi has only two friends: Bush, and Putin.” The whole table laughed hysterically. Boy do they love Obama here. What a wonderful Saturday of family, and the fusion of America with Italy.

On Sunday, Matteo and the rest of the family took us to Pisa to view the famous leaning tower. As Dad had said before I left, “There’s not much to see in Pisa. The leaning tower is pretty much just a tower. And it leans.” Which is, yes, basically what Pisa has to offer. But it’s cute and quaint just like every other small Italian city, and after viewing the tower and the cathedral in the main square (which had grass. Grass! Something I haven’t seen in a while.), we took a little walking tour – as always led by Stefania’s knowledgable commentary. But first – lots of pictures in front of the leaning tower, of course. The lawn was filled, hilariously, with tons of tourists posing for pictures positioned so that they looked as though they were holding up the tower with two hands. I did one too, and then we took family photos at the foot of the lean. I was impressed by the tower and actually think it might be my favorite tourist spot in Italy so far – the beautiful lawn spread in front, the clean white tower and its image in mind since childhood finally brought to life before my eyes. It was cuter than I thought, strangely, and even shorter and skinnier in real life than I had imagined. What a sight!

And so the journey ended, and Nick and I rushed to make the train from Pisa back to Florence. It was a whirlwind two days, with lots of pasta and dessert and espresso, almost too much to be able to tell here. I’m sure I will think of more stories from our Castiglioncello weekend later and will toss those in once in a while.

We returned to Florence for one last day of Nick’s trip and cooked dinner in the apartment to talk over all the fun of the week. He left around 3am to catch a train back to Pisa, where his flight was scheduled to leave from around 6:30am. So I go to sleep Sunday night…and wake up Monday morning with 8 missed calls and an incoming call from Nick. I’m downstairs in your apartment, he says, can you come let me into the building? Apparently, the worst snowstorm in 18 years in London had completely shut down several U.K. airports. Everything was frozen, including the flights leaving Italy. So, he was back for a few extra days and had a rescheduled flight for Wednesday, spending a couple more days exploring Florence while I returned to classes. It was a nice surprise and I didn’t even have to deal with the worst part. While Nick went to and fro Pisa and Florence on Sunday night, I slept peacefully having no idea that London was in a snow disaster until his ghost reappeared on my doorstep and I almost thought I was dreaming the next day. Oh the stories we’ll be able to tell. Europe is so so so unpredictable! But maybe that’s its charm :)

Moving on…
There are two other recent noteworthy meals: one, of course, is GustaPizza, where I’ve now eaten twice in the last week. It is authentic, fresh-baked, inexpensive thin-crust pizza just around the corner from my apartment. My favorite is their name-sake gusta-pizza, with sliced tomatoes, mozzarella chunks and arugula (spelled wrong I think? Haha) all laid on top of a saucy, cheesy crust. Way better than Dominoes. Everything is fresh.
And then for the interesting meal, at a random restaurant my friends and I chose after going to the movies. (There is an American movie theater here, where they show movies in English a few weeks after they are released in the U.S. In fact, the movie theater is an actual theater, with balconies and velvety seats and a stage where the projector screen drops to show the film. There’s even an intermission!) Anyway, the restaurant we picked looked nice from the outside, as they all do, and we assume no Italian food can be truly bad, so we went for it. Inside, I happened to run into a friend from high school who I hadn’t seen in probably four years and didn’t even know she was studying in Florence too. Small world. So, we ordered the cheapest house wine, which is always delicious, and decided on some of the night’s specials. As Allie regaled the table with her crazy ghost story – which I made her tell since I’ve already heard and think it’s fabulously frightening – we chowed down a nice first macaroni course. The second was not so inspiring. Nick had ordered some sort of stomach, cow I think, and thought it would be interesting to try for some reason, which – predictably – turned out to be completely gross tasting and a texture unlike anything you’d conceivably eat. Not that I would know this first hand, since I refused to taste it haha. I think I can say with certainty that this is the only meal I have ever, ever seen him not finish. Quite the adventure. Me and the girls had a similarly unsatisfactory second course, some kind of beef stew that was stringy and fatty and made me realize why everyone in Italy sticks to cooking pasta. But not to worry, we fixed it all with gelato after and then headed over to Beatles Night at a club called BeBop. This place hosts cover bands each night of the week and turns out it gets quite the turn out. It seemed quiet from the street, but inside was loud and we could hardly move through the crowd. After finding ourselves a spot to sit, squashed together, we listened to some of the first set – great actually, for attempting to cover the Beatles. Definitely a place we’ll be going back to. Maybe for Janis Joplin cover night?