Birthday Bash

Patrizia & the pyrotechnics atop her cake

Last night was the big birthday party for Signor Gori's daughter Patrizia who turned 60. There were about 80 people in attendance and it was a spectacular night! Apertivos were served by a small lake / large pond on the property. Then dinner was served at tables set up behind the villa. Unfortunately the meal was heavy on the seafood, which I'm not a huge fan of, so I missed out a bit. But what I did have was excellent. The first course was ricotta and spinach gnudi with a sauce of either lobster or crab (I couldn't tell which). Next was linguini in a tomato sauce that tasted to me like it had a bit of orange in it, which was a neat flavour addition. Next was tuna steak, which looked perfectly done, but I didn't try it. Last was dessert, which was millefoglie (crispy, flaky pastry layers with cream in between). They also served little creamy desserts in shot glasses during dancing, and those were incredible. I probably had more than I should have...

Then everybody danced until 2:30 am. I had to stop after a while, and got severely out-danced by all the 60 year olds (especially the birthday girl). My feet are in agony today... partly because of the heels I wore for the first half of the night, and partly because I was dancing outside barefoot for the second half of the night.

Today is just a relaxing day at the office. I officially have nothing to eat, so I'm going to go into Florence after work to grab some dinner and something I can have for breakfast and lunch tomorrow. Tonight is my last night sleeping at Celle!

Signor Gori & the birthday girl, Patrizia

Millefoglie for dessert

Patrizia and her younger sister, Stefania

Me, sweaty after dancing, and Anna, Stefania's oldest daughter

Dinner setup behind the villa, plus live music

Turning 22 in Italy!

Me on the terazza of the Rinascente

Wooooooo it's officially my birthday AND, conveniently, a national holiday in Italy. Yesterday Katie and I went to Florence, and although both my stomach and the weather seemed a bit dicey, both held out wonderfully and it was a GREAT day/night.

We did some shopping in the afternoon (I got myself some very nice presents) and then had an incredible dinner at Za Za, the restaurant where I had the truffled spaghetti carbonara last week. This time I had beef tenderloin (very very rare) with creamy green peppercorn sauce. Katie had ravioli in truffled cream sauce. Can't wait to go back there! Then we met up with some of my friends and after hanging out near Il Porcellino (statue of a boar where, if you throw in a coin, you're sure to return to Florence) we headed to my favourite lounge/bar in Florence, called Naima. Naima is awesome. You're guaranteed to make a zillion friends every time you go, also largely due to Florence's large tourist population. Last night the bathroom was definitely the place to get acquainted, as the door was broken, so you had to stand guard for the person going before you, and then you had to ask the person after you to do the same. While doing this, I became an honorary member or Gonzaga University in Washington State, and I met a slew of other awesome people. All in all, a fantastic night!

Katie and I came back early this morning and had a much-needed nap. Apparently tonight Elena and Liliana are making me birthday dinner which is really sweet. Miranda even gave me a gift yesterday! I didn't expect my birthday here to be so special :)

New belt woohoo!

Katie on the terazza of the Rinascente

Me on the terazza of the Rinascente

Dinner!

I was going for some extra luck

Amici 

Amici

Amici

The cappella restorations were done yesterday! Removal of scaffolding = awesome present

Birthday Abroad

So tomorrow is my birthday and I think I just realized that this is the first time I'll ever be celebrating my birthday abroad... that can't be right, can it?? Well anyways, I'm just (barely) over a stomach bug and am essentially willing myself to feel fantastic (I'm not entirely convincing, but a trip to the pharmacia should help my cause). I'd like to give a shout out to fellow intern Fava whose recent blog post perfectly and eloquently illustrates how I've felt these last few days.

In a few minutes Katie and I are heading into Florence for some shopping, dining (probably Indian food woohoo!) and other birthday-related activities. I was hoping that Snookie and Jwoww would be able to join the fun, but apparently Snookie had an altercation with the polizia a couple days ago...

Another exciting thing happening this week is that we might finally be getting internet (AKA. "the email") in our apartment so we don't have to come up to the villa in the daytime only. We have high hopes, but our knowledge about this comes from a multi-lingual game of telephone, so we aren't entirely sure what's going on. Apparently the other day, Sig. Gori said that they were aiming a satellite to shoot internet at our apartment... Then yesterday Miranda told us that we were getting wifi... the kind that needs cables. We were originally told it would happen yesterday, but then while I was sick on the couch watching Battlestar Galactica (just getting into it.. totally hooked), the "internet guys" came in and said something about venerdi (Friday)... soooo maybe by the time I get back from Croatia. We'll see.

Oh I should also update you on Katie and my excursion to the seaside town of Viareggio on Saturday. It didn't help that I was getting sick and sort of passed out on the insanely crowded train on the way back, but besides that it was good. We got there and plopped ourselves down under an umbrella on some loungers, but after a little while, some donne grosse beside us told on us (apparently it was a private part of the beach where you have to pay 15 euros for an umbrella). So we said ok, we'll just go put our towels down on the sand. Apparently you also need to pay for that. So we asked directions to the public part of the beach. The lady told us it's "piccolissimo" (tiny). That is an understatement. It's about the same square footage as my last 1-bedroom apartment in Toronto, and it's not even by the water (See below picture). It is also apparently make-out central. Nevertheless, we worked a bit on our tans, and I am officially "off-white" as opposed to "eggshell". Hurrah!

That's all for now! Ciao ciao.

Italian boys + legs shaved = ready for beach!

Looking over the private beach to the mountains beyond. Very scenic.

Katie kindly showing you the public beach. See what I mean??