Mission: Pasta Storm

Scene: 2 Americans shiftily approach a small, but outstanding, Italian restaurant.

Restaurant Owner: Ehhh...Bonjourno! Waait. You are...Martino?

American 1 (Call Sign: "Cheeks MD"): Yes, Yes! Hello! Ca Va! Er....Umm, Hello!

American 2 (Call Sign: "Boots McFee"): ?

RO: Come in--here is good? (Points at table)

Cheeks: Wonderful. Grazie! (They sit)

Boots (stares suspiciously over menu): Are they onto us yet?

Cheeks: They will be if you keep staring at them like that.

Boots: But our idea is GENIUS! It's crazy to pay for cooking lessons when you can just stalk a restaurant until they adopt you and teach you to cook for free!

Cheeks: Let's just stick to the plan tonight Boots. We'll wait till they close, buy them a round, and broach the idea.

Boots: Ok, well then: Prosecco Emergency! (Points to empty glass)

Cheeks: [Deep sigh].

(2 hours later)

RO: And how was everything?

Cheeks: Amazing! Thank you!

Boots: (darts shifty glances at other restaurant patrons who appear to be sticking around past close) ...

RO: Well, have a limoncello on the house! For you!

Boots: ! !!!! (whispers excitedly) We're in!

Cheeks: Slow down there tiger.

(20 minutes later)

Boots: (Confusedly) Is he coming back?

(10 minutes later)

Cheeks: Hmmmm. I think we have a long road ahead. Let's just say goodbye, and come back again soon.

(they walk out towards owner)

RO: Ahh, well, come again! Martino, yes? And....your name is?

Boots: Christie.

RO: Chrisss-tie!

Cheeks: Well, thanks for a great evening...Paulo (?)

RO: Umm....Paulo? (confused look) My name is Nickolai.

(walks away)

Boots/Cheeks (Stare at each other and start giggling): Damn. Well, there goes that in!

(End scene)

We did however, get friended by our favorite bartender on facebook at our favorite non-local pub. so it's not all 15 steps back!

Voiceover: Next up on the Adventures of Boots McFee and Cheeks MD
1. What happened with the 6 Hawaiians?
2. Who found the Rose Prosecco?
3. Who, exactly, swing-danced with whom at the Ferragamo Palazzo? And why was someone wearing flip flops?
4. Will Batman be able to reach his bat utility belt in time?

Tune in next time! And Follow me! (see posting below!)

Follow Me?

I know.

Famous Last Words.

But, somehow Martin became a follower of my blog without me knowing how? or what? But then I signed on anyway, because blogger told me it would be fun. And, I'm not willing to fight blogger. Europeans who repeatedly try and run me over? Maybe. People who wear lots of acid washed denim? Most likely. But blogger--definitely not!

So, become a follower! I'm not really sure how it all works, but because I have evil plans involving blogs in my future anyway, I figured it would be good to check out. So that note, if you enjoy the blog, or find it interesting and worthy of more than one read, then show the love and follow me!* The link is on the upper right hand corner. Whoo! (Whuuu!)


*I'm not saying I will be personally offended if you don't choose to follow me, but I may stop responding to emails. Or answering your calls. And start referring to you as that person I used to know. What was your name again? :)

Becoming Italian: Part 2

So ok-
Prior to posting I wanted to thank everyone who has commented so far. I love the comments! You are all hilarious! Keep commenting! Whoooo! Yay!!

Photo is one Martin took of me doing my best to appear (in the dark, from far away, if you squint and have been drinking) as an Italian woman. We have decided, after a solid week of careful and intensive observation, that it takes a few things to successfully make the transition from American to Italian (besides speaking the language or carrying the passport) and they are the following:
1. Swathing yourself in leather
2. Mixing your browns! All shades can go together here! And black too!
3. Wearing heels. Always. And stomping them fiercely a la America's Next Top Model on the stones of Florence as you walk by.

So, the transition begins! We also had some fun taking photos around the Ponte Vecchio both day and night, and so the remainder of this post will be mostly photos, unless genius strikes me.

A small soliliquoy (sp?) on running in Florence: Yes, few do it. Most point and stare confusedly as you run past (running? expansive gesture--in Firenze? expansive gesture--but why? Prego??), though one enterprising young gentlemen did high-five me and that I appreciated! But, you do take your life in your hands; though, as someone who faced the dash of death in India, I feel that I'm up to the challenge. And more importantly, Martin is also up to the challenge of keeping me alive. Which, as we've discovered, is pretty much a 24/7 job. Thanks Martin!!

Ok: The Duomo as seen from an Alley:


A close up of a cool door I saw

Our cheese lady's cart in the local market. We have a cheese lady!


The Arno where I run, also some taken of/from bridges near the Ponte Vecchio

The Italian Language, or Not Just Adding an "O!"

The picture is of special agent Fredericko, or, as I sometimes like to call him, Irwin (Taken at our favorite pizza restaurant. Anyone who comes to visit will be eating here!).

So, more pictures of both of us to come soon as requested from Mom, and Martin has taken some WONDERFUL ones of the city and accidentally of me that are on his flicker site. One day I hope to have that link and when I do, as god as my witness, I will forward it on. Probably. After some editing.

But ok, so Martin and I have been struggling to pick up some Italian, any Italian, of any sort. We both keep reverting to terrible TERRIBLE French. We are working on convincing some poor local of some sort to teach us something. Help us out. PLEASE HELP US. But so far, nothing in the works. And our back up plan of becoming friends with Italians and learning the language that way has failed, in that there aren't any Italians actually in Florence. So, last night, after a truly awesome pizza we...just....gave up and spent some quality time planning our trip to Monaco. Martin has decided that he is going to buy a linen suit and some gold chains, while I myself will be unveiling a variety of cocktail dresses and possibly a fake southern accent. And, we will be inflicting our terrible French on the french people--long may they prosper! Bonjour! Ca Va! Oui! Way to be a language taught in the US Public School System! Whooo! (Or "Whuuuu!" if I was saying it in my fake French accent). We are super excited.

So tonight (wed) we are meeting our first friend! A Hungarian woman most recently from DC (she loves americans! we love people who love americans! adopt us!), we met her in the Piazza St. Croce after meeting her friends (random Irish and German students) in one of our local bars. We now talk to anyone near us who speaks any sort of English whether they want to meet us or not, and so we were invited by the aforementioned EU conglomorate to meet up with some more of their friends. And now we have a friend! It's all very exciting.

Anyway, below are some more random shots that may or may not be:
1. Taken from the window of my room
2. Of the Arno from the Ponte Vecchio
3. Martin

Ciao!

Becoming Italian: Part 1

Actually-
There is no becoming Italian so far. Florence is full of---foreigners! We are just but a few. The real Italians seem to have sensibly gone into hiding to avoid the pressing weight of tourists. But we are onto them! They cannot hide forever!

Our plan:
1. Talk to anyone sitting near us, in the hope that they will adopt us (has worked once so far!)
2. Take a cooking class, hopefully given by a local
3. Gesture expansively whenever trying to speak Italian (it helps!)
4. Purchase new shoes (not actually relevant, but fun!)
5. Address Martin as "Frederikco" in an attempt to sound local. (Note: This is only fun for me).

Pictures so far!
Sometimes you run around Arlington County Library on your morning job...sometimes, you around the Duomo!!

Then there are the frescos on your living room ceiling:

We have landed! And I have a phone number!

Business First: To reach me via phone you can call 393473847803, just add a 011 from the states in front of that.

Ok, quick statisticsò:
1. Number of gelato consumed today: 2
2. Number of gelato expected to consume today: 4
3. Number of Frescos on our ceiling: 1
4. Number of people I have accidentally run into or hit with an expansive gesture: 3
5. Level of awesomeness of Florence on a 1-10 scale: 11

After an amazing first class trip over for both myself and Dr. Irwin Fengelder (The name the flight attendant asked Martin to call himself when he was upgraded to 1st class after Irwin turned it down to stay in coach with his wife-thank you Delta!) we landed in Milan and ran for the train to Florence. We ended up paying for a eurostar train to Florence but got tickets for another train? Leaving at a different time? and were highly confused. Cue Martin leaving me with the bags (I could not actually lift my luggage and Martin had to strap me into everything and then prop me upright, I almost took out a few people while stumbling around) and racing back to the office 7 minutes before the eurostar left. Except there were two eurostar leaving at the same time to cities that were also not florence, but we asssumed florence was on the way. Long story short, we ended up running for the train, with both the conductor AND martin leveraging myself and my luggage up the stairs. After all of that, we took the first seats we saw and fell asleep...in first class. Which was great, except our tickets were for coach, as the conductor enlightened us later. We decided to pay for the upgrade, but did not have cash so....the conductor wandered off and forgot about us while searching for a credit card machine and we got to stay in first! yay!

Now we are here, and settling in. And Italy is amazing! And also, full of Americans. So far, Martin has discovered that I am not so talented at navigating or understanding the obvious. He has also discovered that at times he must act as translator, even when the original language he is translating is English. I have discovered that Martin is awesome, organized, and prepared. So far, a match made in heaven!

Best quotes so far:
"I am going to just sit back and fade into the pleather" -- Martin, as Dr. Irwin, trying to keep a low profile

"Speaking Italian is like doing an interpretive dance with your tongue!" -- Martin, after watching me try and speak Italian but coming out with a new language composed of bad french and even worse english.

On our way....from JFK!

Look! I rhymed!

I've already been traveling for too long and I haven't even gotten on the international flight yet, much less the train in Italy to get us safely from Milan to Florence. I'll probably only get sillier from here...I should warn Martin (Martin: Watch out!).

Anyway, we are flying Delta, which means standby, and this is Martin's first trip down that rabbit hole. I've already read him the standby code of ethics (My luggage will always be carry on, my bag will always be rolling etc) and he has practiced his first bout of lurking.

Note: Gate lurking is one of the key survival skills in any standby traveler's arsenal. It's right below packing light, and right above being capable of showering in an airport bathroom when standby goes bad.

Anyhoo--pictures posted are of Martin's first lurking. Ahhh....to be so young! (and clean!) We have good chances of making this flight, meaning that the lurking will not be in vain. BUT, we are both here so early that I don't even know where we stand. I will say, however, that the crowd waiting to go to Milan with us is....varied?...and....seasoned?.....and just ever so slightly grim. Though, that could be the fact that they are sitting in JFK.

So--this is Day .5 of our trip. However, it promises to be delightful--Martin handed me a travel guide when I arrived, and when I looked up and said: "We have to--" he finished my sentence with: "Go to the chocolate place that is in our neighborhood. Absolutely!"

Yay Martin! Yay Italy! Please be kind to us Delta!!

c.