Vitellone

I did just post yesterday, but today (rather-tonight) was so epic that I had to share. It all involved copious amounts of Italian food and wine and gelato.

Earlier today- Jacqueline, Katrina, and I went to church in the Pantheon. Because when else are you going to get to go to church in a building built before Christianity even started? Afterwards we kind of roamed that neighborhood for a bit, consulted Rick Steves, and decided on a place for lunch, a little trattoria on Via delle Collonne. It turned out to have the second best pizza in Roma, secondo me (La Scaletta in Trastevere being the best). Afterwards we tried Della Palma [usually not an option for me due to its proximity to Giolitti] where I had cioccolato fondente (seriously BLACK chocolate) and tartufo palma (cherry liquor-dark chocolate-chocolate shavings). More wandering. Some Americans in Piazza Navona asked me to take a "PHOTOGRAPH of THEM, pear favoraaaayy, GRATZI, GRATZI SEEGNOREENA" thinking that I was not, in fact, American.

Went home, did a little homework (what little that I have..) and went out for din-din to Sexy Wine, aka Micky's, aka Miscellanea. The meal started out fairly normal- fettuccine ai funghi was it, and it was great. These two guys from Stanford were eating next to us (apparently studying at Oxford this fall), so we chatted with them for a bit. Then I noticed that the three women sitting diagonally from us were speaking.....ukie. Chysta ukrainska mova, like hardcore ukrainski slova, no rosiyska mova/slang/verbs/anything. So I listened more to make sure. Yup, def ukie. Definitely. So eventually, after lingering for like forever, the Stanford guys left and the waitstaff took over. They wouldn't leave us alone, and yours truly consumed several glasses of fragolina (potent strawberry wine- so so good) because the waitstaff kept refilling and I totally wasn't paying attention. So in the midst of all of this, I start talking to the ukie women, who turn out to be from Lviv (sweeeeet!) and we talk about Roma, Kyiv, Ukraina, the diaspora, Ukraintsi in Roma, and Trastevere. In the midst of THIS, my vision is getting fuzzier and my speech much less effective, and the two guys (30s) sitting over THERE come over to our table and pull up chairs. They buy us MORE wine, yes MORE WINE, calling me furba, which I think is an accurate description of me. Yes, oh yes, so we talk to these two italiani for a solid two hours, during which Batman, il doppiaggio, gli sottotitoli, Heath Ledger, our lack of homework, Roman wine, the upcoming American elections, gelato flavors, and various other topics were discussed AT LENGTH. Plastered. Not on purpose. Then we all went and got gelato- myself, Jacqueline, Katrina, Alessandro, and Valerio. Who did not pay for our gelati. Vitelloni to the MAX.

I love this country.