Sunday, January 27, 2008

Pisa and Lucca. The oil farm schtick and men in winter still like to lick.

The alarm didn't go off at 7:00 am but rather the Gorilla went off at 7:24 screaming "ah what time is it?" "we are not going to make it" "allison, shit we are not going to make it". (The "it" the Gorilla was referring to was the bus that was living at 8 am that was going to take us to Pisa) 7:40: The Gorilla and I are half-way to the train station. 7:45: The Gorilla and I are at the bus station but we don't see anyone. 7:47: The Gorilla calls our friend Max to see if the bus had already left but he doesn't pick up. 7:48: We are the first people to arrive at the bus station for Pisa. If our apartment ever went into flames and we were told we had 10 minutes to get down stairs, we would be able to get fully dressed (in cute clothes, might I add), make up-uped, teeth brushed and even breakfast for the road and survive (granted the fire was on the other side of the apartment and it was a slow moving fire) . I decided that waking up for class an hour early is over rated when I can do it all in 10 minutes. Despite the fact the Gorilla cut her throat on piece of glass running there, and by that I mean, the air was so cold and we were so tired/slash getting sick, that it felt like she had cut her throat on a piece of glass. We got aboard the rumble-tumbler, and by that I mean, it was a short bus that had one wheel shorter than all the rest so it was rockin' and rollin', hence the name rumble-tumbler. Typical I narco narcoded all the way to Pisa. We get off the rumbler tumbler and arrive at the leaning tower of Disney Land, aka the leaning tower of Pisa. The tower was on the out skirts of the city because apparently back in the day they wanted to be "different" from all of their neighbors like Luccan's and Florentines and put their duomo and their baptistry on the outskirts to protect them from invaders. The tower was built to look out at the ocean and the land. Because the city is close to the water, and the land is unstable and they didn't build enough support to hold up the tower, thus the nice lean. Recently (and by recently I mean in the past 100 years..recently in European time can mean anything from 1 year to 100 years) engineers were able to devise a way to stabilize the tower aka. make its shoulder lean (let me see your shoulder lean). But they could of technically straightened that puppy out but that town makes nice money in the bank from all of the tourists. Obviously the Gorilla and I did what we do best and took the most ridiculous pictures in front of the tower. Look above for fun and games. After Pisa, the rumble tumbler quasi-took us to an olive oil farm/vinard located between Pisa and Lucca for another 5 course meal. I say quasi because we only got lost 4 times before we actually got there. Now I can not say for sure it 4 times, it might have been 5 because I was doing what I did best and um yeah I slept the whole way there. The olive oil farm was a small family owned farm, located on the most beautiful plot of land I have ever seen. The view was incredible. We took a small tour of the farm, but during the summer months families can rent part of the farm and live in a house with a full backyard, not to mention a private pool and free food. Apparently this season was not such a good one because some type of fly got into their olives and they were only able to make oil during the month of november for the entire year. Bread, followed by Risotto, followed by brushcetta, followed by beef and chicken, followed by grilled vegetables, followed by some more bread and concluding with 8 different flavors of pie to sample made up our lunch. The Gorilla and I met a pleasant group of girls this time around, and our entire table managed to finish everything they served us minus the freaky beef. After the last super-lunch, the tour continued on to Lucca. Unfortunately, because we got lost so many times going to the olive oil farm, we didn't have that much time to explore Lucca. BUT I finally found a pair of boots and they were only 24 euro. In honor of my mothers birthday, I bought myself some shoes. Happy Birthday Momma Jenny Isenberg! I got back from Lucca around 5, the Gorilla and I thought we should be normal American 20 year olds and go out. This is the part of the night where it just gets weird. Everyday something has to happen to the Gorilla and I that is either freaky or just plain old bizzare. This is that point in our day. We go to this bar called Astro or Aster or as the Gorilla calls it Asshole and we decided to go down in the basement to dance because I got my new dancin boots on and I needed to test them out. My freaky radar started ticking the minute I stepped down the stairs because of the nasty russian, hairy air pit mixed with piss and b.o. smell. The next sign of freakiness was that they had a fog machine. Finally the last clue of freakiness was the an extremely large population of young Italian boys (not men, but high school students) crowding the entire basement. Regardless all the freaky signs that my freak-o-meter of sending off, the Gorilla and I continued downstairs to dance. We start dancining with each other and then we start dancing with two other guys that seemed normal, but fun (normal, as in greecy hair, tight jeans, but not pelvic thursting and purring at you boys, thus making them normal) All of the sudden the boy that I was dancing with grabs my face, tells me that I am the most beautiful girl he has ever seen and then in no time at all her proceeded to LICK MY NECK. YES, LICK MY NECK. YUCK! I instantly wipe it off, give him the look of death and run away. I have a permanate non-visible scar bigger than Harry Potter's lighting bolt. After my freak-o-meter almost caught on fire, the Gorilla and I decided it was a good idea to head home and indeed it was.

New York has Harlem, Florence has Via Ponte alle Mosse

Fridays are wonderful and this friday was exceptionally wonderful.  Our roommates went to Venice for the weekend (yippie skippie doo) and the Gorilla and I had our Italian wonderland all to ourselves. After a rather long night, we slept in and by that I mean we woke at 5 am and stayed awake until 7 am while the devil did his damage at the gates of purgatory (aka my street) and then we went back to sleep and re-woke up at 12 pm.  I am not sure if you can technically count that as sleeping-in but we didn't get out of bed until then.  We made a delicious breakfast: our speciality, eggplant-spinach-tomato-omelet-in-a-pita delight and a big glass of black-as-death coffee (well, mine was more like black as death coffee with a side of milk, while the Gorilla's is straight black, she comes from the jungle and is thus able to drink death).  We decided to have breakfast on the roof because it was a beautiful morning. We met our neighbors, I think it was the same guy that saw the Gorilla's hoo hoo's the day before and we waved hello to the Duomo climbers. We decided to disinfect our house after the animals left, so as we used to do in the Isenberg household back in the day, we had a house cleaning party. I even mopped the floor and did a load of laundry.  Our weekend plans were up in the air (we knew we were going to go to Pisa and Lucca with our group on Saturday but today and Sunday, we were not so sure), but we were told to do all of the touristy things in Florence this weekend before the herds of tourists started coming.  Apparently in the next month the population of students/tourists in Florence is going to double.  The Gorilla and I decided that we were going to climb the Duomo and 460 steps later, and a little out of breath, we were standing on top of the world. Literally.  We could see the entire city, in the north we could see the snow on the tip top of the mountains and in the south the Arno was glistening.  I met my future husband on top of the Duomo but unfortunately he a. didn't know it b. he was studying in Rome and c. his friend had booger in his nose. After our Duomo workout, I finally went to the phone store to get a new phone because when shit happens, when water flows, when bags fill up with rain and phones swim in the streams, they stop working.  So, for those of you dying to call me...which I know you all are, my phone now officially works. The Gorilla and I were going to rent bikes and explore the city but by the time we got to the rental place, they only had one bike left.  I was willing to get a child seat adapter and pull the Gorilla around town like at a circus when the clown rides around with a monkey but they didn't give us that option, so we opted out of doing the whole bike thing completely.  By the time we made the executive decision not to play circus, it was already 5 pm. The rest of our day gets a little weird but it is a typical example of an adventure for me and the Gorilla. We decided to go to an apertivo because like all other nights, we didn't want to cook.  I geniously decided to google "best apertivo in Florence" and found a place that was supposed to be the best apertivo in the whole city.  I get the Gorilla all excited, we even get all dolled up. We started walking to this place called "Elliot Braun Bar", the Gorilla finds the street that it is located on on the map and we make our way there.  We assumed like all hoppin' places in Florence, that it would be relatively close but no it was not, not at all. I didn't even know that Florence had a ghetto, but I am a witness to it, and it does! We finally found the street that the bar was located on, only to walk for another 20 minutes, realizing at this point that we were no longer on the map. We finally get there and it was closed. We walked to the ghetto of Florence to eat at the cities (supposedly) best apertivo and it was CLOSED.  Come to think about it, it didn't even look like it had been open for over ten years. Probably because it was in the ghetto. The night only gets better.  We haul our hungry tummies back to our neck of the woods but obviously the adventure was not that easy.  We had to go to the bathroom really bad and peeing our pants was not an option.  We stop at one hotel because all of the coffee bars were closed but apparently the hotel manager tried to convince us that it was closed, even though we were standing inside the hotel. We walk another 2 minutes and go to another hotel. For the fear of being rejected again, I, in the heat of the moment, decided that it would be a good idea to throw out an accent when asking to use the restroom.  "Excuse me sir, my friend and I just missed our dinner reservation and we really need to use the restroom, do you mind?" was how I asked.  The Gorilla believed I sounded similar to a deaf Australian but it worked.  Either he pitied me for having such a bad accent or he was truly concerned that we had missed our dinner reservations and felt sorry for us (which doesn't really make sense why we needed to use his restroom, but like I said, it worked) On the way out, I made the Gorilla thank him. We finally found a pizza place somewhere between the ghetto and home because by then we were not too concerned with what we were going to eat for dinner (we wake up every morning saying that we are going to be "healthy" but that has yet to happen) We go to this restaurant, order pasta and pizza from a waiter who looks like he stuck his head in a vat of olive oil. Throughout our entire dinner, he kept stopping my to sing songs in my ear, give us free wine and make weird eye contact with both me and the Gorilla.  An hour later, and a little tipsy from the free drinks, we decided to leave.  Satisfied with both the meal and the price of the meal we headed home, leaving oil head a little tip.  We hadn't made it down the street before oil head comes running after us, calling for us.  At first I thought he wanted to get our attention and tell us something, then I realized he was holding something and I thought he wanted to give us back the tip we had left him.  I yelled back to him, "No, its for you". I repeated it several times but he still kept waving and calling for us.  Finally, I went back to see what he wanted and he was holding my ring that I had left on the table by accident (the Gorilla and I were romantically sitting together and she wanted to see a ring my mom had given me) When I met up with him, he gracefully put my ring back on finger and then he kissed my hand.  A little bit of oil dripped on to my hand in the process.  At this point in the evening, I was spent and the Gorilla and I came home and went to bed.