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Published: June 23rd 2011
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Ubriaco? No. But they look it.
Drunk? is what that means. I don't think they are, because none of the people drank excessively... and it's legal to drink at this age! They wanted me to take this photo for some reason, and it made me laugh, so I hope it does the same to you! Well now that I am basically healed of the mysterious virus that knocked out half of the family the last couple of days, we are all back to our normal routine. And if you can remember back to what that was in the morning and early afternoon, it is pretty much nothing to talk much about. Wake up, shower, play Wii, read The Jungle (phenomenal so far, by the way! READ IT), eat food, watch House, etc.... I'm glad I can get done with half of the day in just a paragraph now.
(Except that this first new normal day was Paolo's birthday!)
The day really began when Paolo told me to "prepare myself" (this is how they've been taught to say "get ready"... it makes me laugh quietly to myself every time) because we had to go to his father's countryside house to get ready for his party. (This is the house by Nico's pear orchard). So, as there were no parents at the house at the moment, I figured that one of them would pick us up in a car and take us there. However, I had forgotten that as soon as someone turns 18, they are
Part of Pear Panorama
I tried to take a panorama of the pear orchard... but it won't work. So here is a piece of the Epic Fail of a panorama. legally allowed to carry a passenger on a motorcycle, much like how kids in the US can legally carry more than one non-family passenger when they turn 17. So, I figured that I would just go with him (I had a helmet thank the Lord) and he would take us there at a decent pace.
Ha. It's Europe. Their idea of "decent pace" is a lot different--something I also forgot until I was hanging on for dear life so that I wouldn't fall off of the motorcycle while I was suffering a myocardial infarction brought on by his quick and merciless accelerations. But, as I am here typing, you can reckon that I survived. Barely.
Another assumption I made was that his parents and Claudia would eventually come and join the fun--it was their son/brother's birthday after all. But no... they never showed up. The whole night was just Paolo, me, and a bunch of his friends--most of them who were not my favorite friends that he had (fortunately, Federico came, who always makes me feel more comfortable around everyone).
For food, there was, of course, pizza. The delivery guy makes deliveries on a motor scooter, so
Federico trying to catch peanuts in his mouth
He wasn't very good at this. Probably because of the glasses. it was funny to me that he had to make three trips to get all of our pizzas to us. So we all chowed down on pizza (without proper utensils... these pizzas are the devil to eat solely with the hands!) and drank carbonated water, soda, and (for others, not me) some beers. (Paolo didn't have any from what I saw, so I wasn't worried more for the night ride back home).
The whole night was just a ton of socializing... not much to write about there because, as you know, I'm not fluent in Italian and I couldn't understand what everyone was saying. I was just kind of an observer the whole night honestly... just taking in the situation and making the most out of it.
One bizarre thing they did was steal the motorcycle Paolo was using and pushed it over to the "hog wash"-- a big pipe that sticks out of a water tank that sprays out water when a chain is pulled. So (as a "birthday present" to Paolo) they washed the motorcycle and got it drenched. "Hmmm." I thought, "at least it's clean". Well, it was until another bike showed up and started
Silhouette-ish...
Happy birthday Paolo! (nice haircut too). to spin it's wheels in the dirt and do donuts around the wet motorcycle do kick up dirt. This made it dirty again. "Hmmm." I thought. 'Ok."
Paolo broke out some tiramisu that he made with Claudia earlier in the day (I offered to help, but he said "no don't worry". "you sure?" "yes." ok then....). And so I ate some of that while battling zanzare (mosquitos) and fumo di sigarette (cigarette smoke).
Eventually (5 hours later) people started leaving, and thus began the 45 minute quest to start to make a dent in the pig-sty mess that 20 or so teenagers left behind... pizza boxes, beer bottles, plastic cups, cigarette butts... you name it, it was there. After a while, we decided that we had cleaned the outside well enough, and would save the rest for later (I think that's what we decided). After all... It was past midnight, and we were all extremely tired.
So we hopped on the bike to ride back, I had another myocardial infarction (less traffic, but in the dark. it evened out), and we thankfully arrived home safely. As you can tell. I've survived two days of illness, and one night of motorcycle passenger-ing. I'm becoming a grade-A dare-devil here in Italy.
Buonanotte!
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Ranger bob
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daredevil
now you know how Brin and Jared feel while riding in your car with you!