amanda vs. gelato, or viva bar crawl italiano!

Thurs Jan 15 2009

I think I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna just shell out the money, suck it up, and buy some sweet italian boots. it's the sale season so I might as well do it now before prices go back up, and the giant Ipercoop/mall has this huge DSW-like shoe store with so many sweet, sweet boots that I can't help myself. I think ultimately, I'll get a pair that's expensive and I will love and cherish and a pair within the city walls for way cheap that I will also love and cherish but are more likely to wear the soles through by the time I leave.

Now that I've psyched myself up enough so that's out of the way and I can go buy them after the internet and lunch, much to tell since yesterday. After quickly fleeing from the wifi yesterday, we had to head to the post office to declare that we're staying here for a while (or something? I'm not even sure exactly what we did but I do know it cost like 70 euro. At least my visa at home was free). Waiting there was like waiting at a DMV at home, but eventually, starving, we got out of there and heading for the no. 1 (so far) gelato place in town. This place has some mad history, or so the Viterbo people say. It's gone from bank to prison to gelateria, I believe, but if that's the path that it takes to get this stuff, it's worth it. We bought cheap okay sandwiches (my first time having white bread in YEARS), Alex who lives upstairs was the first to try hot chocolate and OMG it's somewhere between hot pudding and syrup ahhhh soooo gooood, and then, the gelato. I got a cone with noicchiolata (sp?) and cioccolate, aka hazelnut and chocolate, aka separately the chocolate tasted like the hot chocolate but cold and together they tasted like Nutella. Drooooooool.

We headed to the mall after, where I saw about 6 different pairs of my dream boots. My roommates desperately were yearning for some non-italian TV (I'd actually rather watch it in italian, if at all) so they wanted to head to ipercoop to find a computer-TV cable so they could watch DVDs. They got it, and eventually we figured out how to hook it up. I sat through The Devil Wears Prada (gotta say, not my fave) but when they started up Transformers, which is a wayyyy better movie, I knew I had to get out of there or I'd spend another night sitting by the TV with them in our apartment.

While the roommies stayed to watch the movie, I headed upstairs to Alex and John's apartment. They're frat brothers from Idaho State, and the differences in life up there seem pretty intense from back home for me. But it was fun, we chatted and watched a soccer match where JUV creamed CAT (I think, but we still have no idea which team was from where), and debated the pros and cons of our desires and abilities of going on. As if on cue, Nick, another Maryland kid, called me and said he was having people over his apartment. John and Alex decided to stay in, but I felt like I was on a roll staying as far away from the TV as possible and I wanted to keep it up.

So back downstairs, where Amy and Beth decided to stay in but Jenny came out with me and we headed to Nick's apartment. Viterbo once again proved to be much smaller and less confusing than it first seemed. We met up with the others at Nick's apartment after navigating his lobby that was way creepy and sketchy by the light of our cell phones since we couldn't find a switch to rid ourselves of the pitch black. For a while, we hung out, drank wine, met another kid, Derek, who's already been here a semester, watched Derek and Kevin/Jeff/Pedro/Peter play chess (I'll explain later if I have the strength), and exchanged some necessary magic tricks after Kate, who's been here a semester already too, presented the three-piles-of-seven trick.

Around 1, Derek realized it was Wednesday and therefore "going out night." Jenny and I had conveniently picked our first night to venture away from the apartment during "going out night" in Viterbo. "Andiamo!"

Thus follows my first Italian bar crawl. Nick, Jenny, Derek, Katy, Chelsea and I ventured out into the cobblestone streets. First it was to Blitz, one of the many bar/cafes in Viterbo. This one was an internet cafe, but of course, like the others, Nick said the internet's been down. Well, we weren't there for wifi at night anyway, so we ordered drinks and hung out by the bar. After a bit, it was time to find the next stop. Derek paid our tab, and we went to Try.

There, I tried my first italian beer. It was pretty light and not too bad, but I feel like if it had gotten warm I wouldn't have been thrilled with it. We attempted a sad version of salsa dancing since none of us knew for sure how to, watched the italiani form a conga line and then toss one kid in the air repeatedly, sang along to "I will Survive," knowing full well that it would point us out at Americans, and it was good.

Last stop was Shui. The night was dying down by the time we got there, so it wasn't really crowded and we nabbed the section of chairs and table up on a platform that we labeled the VIP area. That was pretty sweet, as were the bathrooms in that place which make me understand why people call a toilet a throne. I'm going to try to remember a camera next time because words will not do justice to that bathroom.

At Shui, I spent most of the time having a pretty intense political discussion with Derek. We both agreed, at the end, that by that point in the night neither of us were in the best state of mind to be doing so, but we were formidable opponents and will have furthers battles in the future.

We headed back to the apartments before that, but not before Nick took Jenny and I to get our first 3 a.m. pane. A bakery near some of the apartments here opens at midnight to start baking bread to sell to the bread stores in town. They keep the back door open, though, most definitely for those drunken or buzzed late night runs made by students for some fresh bread. Right out of the oven, we had pane bianca e pane dolce. I don't think I can correctly convey how everything I eat here tastes even more amazing than the las thing I ate, but that's how it is. The bianca was foccacia with rosemary and salt, and the dolce was basically a croissant with chocolate chips. Jenny and I split one of each, and wow. It was crispy, fresh, hot... sooooo gooood.

Had more class this morning and hopefully buying those boots this afternoon. Every day here cycles between cloudy with a tiny spot of sun, drizzling, and raining. Weather permitting, I'll get some new shoes.

Ciao!