IO!!

Other than the following tale, this blog is pretty much dedicated to my parents, which, as you know, are here now and have been for the past 2 weeks. But before I go into detail of their adventures, I need to mention a little experience I had the night before I went to Rome to meet my parents. I was walking around with a friend of mine wondering what I was going to do for dinner seeing as I had the night off to prepare for the arrival of my parents. He already had prior commitments with his girlfriend for dinner. So I walked with him to this restaurant he used to work at, Del Duca, so he could talk business with the owner. I actually worked in the kitchen at this resturant one night when they had a big party. I worked for lunch and dinner (no money) but it was fun. Well, my friend, Fausto and I are in the kitchen of Del Duca, the most well known and award winning restaurant in Volterra, and the owner decided he didn't want to eat dinner alone, so he invited me to join him. Well, of course I accepted seeing as I was starving and had never eaten a bad meal at Del Duca before. And when the owner of the finest restaurant invites you to his table at his restaurant, you pretty much feel obligated to take the offer. So in the kitchen, he holds up a bowl from across the kitchen and asks if this is ok. I quickly looked and said sure, seeing as I thought I had just seen a bowl full of fresh mushrooms. Well we went to his table and he popped open a bottle of fine white wine. I had a couple of sips before the pasta dish came out. Come to find out, the bowl he held up was full of tiny gray clams and a couple of mussels. YUCK!!! If you don't know me, you don't know that I am very picky when it comes to fish and seafood; I never ate it as a kid and thus never got a desire for its flavor. So I looked at my wine and drank damned near the whole glass before I even began to eat the pasta. Well all was going fine. I didn't gag at all and got almost all the pasta and clams down before a big plate of whole fried fish arrived for us to eat (second course). They were breaded but you could still see a dark bump where the eyes had been covered with breading. Again, like before, I looked at my glass of wine and downed it.

Before I go any further, I must mention, seeing as my family is the primary audience of this blog, that drinking, in no way, is the answer to any problem. However, this situation IS the exception seeing as you can't just get up in the middle of dinner and refuse the dinner that had been offered to you by the owner of the finest restaurant in town. Also, before I continue, if you're stomach is quesy right now, skip the next paragraph.

So I finished that pasta which, at this point I thought of as cake-walk with the plate of what I think were whole fried sardines now sitting in front of me. Well, he finished the pasta first and dove right into the fish pile. And just like corn on the cob, he rotated the body of tiny sea creature in front of his mouth pulling off the meat (and who knows, scales too). And all that was left was a spine, with ribs and a head and fin at either end. He mearly tossed the 'junk' into his pasta bowl and went for another. So I did it, I did exactly like he did and quickly ate the meat off the cob of this poor fish. I think the fish meat never even touched my tongue as it headed south to my stomach. Luckily we were on our second bottle of white wine. I was never so glad to see grilled porcini mushrooms come out to follow the fish course. And 2 years ago, I wouldn't of even eaten these muchrooms but I've since become a big fan of mushrooms after being here for some time. So after (WARNING, MOM and DAD, skip to the next paragraph!), being quite tipsy, I was headed home seeing as I had to be up at 6:30 the next morning to catch the train to Rome. Well, a couple of friends saw me and suggested I have a drink with them. So we all did a shot of two of scotch. [FRAME MISSING or NOT REMEMBERED] So I woke up at 6am, before my alarm went off, half in my bed, feet, still in shoes, flat on the floor, clothes still on, contacts out and the lights on. Lessons learned: 1, before commiting to a dinner, find out what the menu is consisting of; 2, take the tipsiness and just find a back way home, scotch only taste good when you're too drunk to taste it anyways; 3, a day of traveling on trains and busses with a hangover is never fun, especially when your stomach is full of butterflies knowing your parents, who you haven't seen in 4 months, are flying over the skies of Europe, not to far away.

With that said, I did make it to the airport before my parents landed in Rome. I had my mom convinced that I wouldn't be arriving at their hotel till late that evening. I even went as far as emailing her directions on how to get from the terminal outside of Rome to her hotel in Rome central. So I watched them walk out of customs and follow the signs to the train platform (that would take them to their hotel). I had to tuck behind columns when my dad would look behind him. Then, when there were no longer any columns to hide behind, I ran up from behind them and hugged my mom even before she knew I was behind her. It was a great moment; one of sadness and excitement, happiness and comfort. So there we stood for a bit before I took them to the train.

I could go into detail into what we've done over the past 2 weeks but rather I will only tell you anything of importance. I must say, I am very proud of them. I didn't think my mom would touch Italian caffe (espresso). She did and I was surprised and glad she did. I think she's coming around to it. Mind you a caffe here is nothing like any caffe I've ever had in the States. We've done alot. We decided to skip the big cities seeing as Rome was rather unpleasant with all the crowds and lack of community. Things were better the afternoon we all arrived here in my hometown of Volterra. They imediately relaxed and felt free to roam free without me (seeing as they had to since I had to work a few shifts). And I knew they loved my hometown after I heard they went to my favorite place, La Vena di Vino, the place that introduced me to Volterra and pulled my away from the American students 2 years ago when I studies here. They went there Sunday night, normally a dead night, but come to find out it was packed with alot of my friends. I assumed they were in bed when I walked by their apartment after work, and thus I went to bed. I was in bed even before they had left La Vena. How sad that I missed the excitement, but I'm happy to that my friends took my parents in as though they were locals themselves. My mom, since, has said she see's why I want to live here and see that my heart is here in Volterra. I look forward to seeing them here again next summer, as, I'm sure, my friends do too.

Ciao tutti!!