The first night was a weeknight and my roommates and threw an apartment complex party. We live in one of the only completely student-habitated apartment complex's in town and so we invited our neighbors over for some wine pong. I wound up so drunk I fell asleep with my toilet bowl as a pillow. It was definitely the perfect start to my weekend.
I'm so so grateful that I have a roomie (I'm leaving people's names out because I refuse to invade privacy or be sued and am instead making up fun nicknames in Italian for them and I'll from now on call her Selvaggio), whose on the same page as me. She is one of my three roommates and we are quickly becoming extremely close friends. We've got these friends we hang out with all the time, and we all decided last Friday that we were going to go out and have a wild night. We went over their house and got ourselves ready to go by pre-gaming with lots of wine and some Sauza. Our friends are honestly the funnest group of guys you'll ever meet. There are seven of them and each of them has a personality totally seperate from the other. They mix together perfectly. Honestly, readers, the amount of grateful I am to have made a group of friends I like so much so quickly is unbelievable. Having them to hang with all the time is the best, and pre-gaming with them for nights out is always a good time. We were amped up to go at around 12 and hit the town happy as clams.
I'd like to take this opportunity to explain to you all why I put "Blonde" in the title of my blog. I mention in one of my older posts that I hated the stupid American girls who clop around in their heels and stumble along on the streets. I'm the world's biggest hypocrite, everyone. I decided I wanted to look hot and wore the sexiest pair of purple boot-cut heels. Two of the boys who never ever ever look messy complimented me on them and I was feeling good until we started walking. Not only did I hold up our group of 9 but my feet were hurting so badly that Selvaggio kept offering to give me a piggy back ride. After a solid twenty minutes of torture I took the fucking shoes off and walked around Florence bare-foot.
We went out to this little joint that one of my friends, who I'll from now on call Poeta, found. He is this totally deep and inspired guy who gets up early in the morning to write poetry on the Arno, plays guitar, and sings us all songs late at night. Poeta made friends with an Italian guy who owns two bars in Florence, I'll call him Divertimenti, and invited us all to go and meet him. Sei Divine was the name of the bar and on Thursday nights they host this little jazz band until around 1 a.m. When we got there the little place was packed-that is to say there were about 20 people and the addition of my friends and I filled the place to the rafters. All the people were Italians, so incredibly refreshing to get away from the Americans, and they were dancing their Gucci pants off. The jazz band was incredible, all Italians singing Italian songs, and we stayed and all danced off our Levi's. I had a Pineapple Mojhito Divertimenti made for me and it was absolutely the most alcoholic beverage I've had here so far. I was set for the night on that one drink and it gave me the courage to chat amicably with the Itals. We started to leave at around 4 a.m. and Selvaggio and I danced down the streets of Florence with our friends. One of the boys, Carino, a totally suave and super fun guy, walked arm and arm with me all the way home. Partly because he was stumbling but still able to skip with me down the narrow vias. We wound up stopping and chatting with some Italian guys who tried to invite him back to their place (creeps) but Selvaggio rescued us by calling Carino her raggazo and pulled him away!
When we got back to their place one of the funniest kids I've ever met did one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Scorrere, as we'll call him, spits mad flow pretty much always, and I promise you he is hysterical. He is rauncy, fun and inappropriate and I love every second of it. The other day he and two of his other roommates were walking through San Lorenzo and were stopped by some Ethiopians selling watches. They'd set out that day to haggle and wound up buying some really nice watches for really cheap. They got home excited and showing off their new bling when what should Scorrere discover but that his watch was broken. He spent about an hour trying to fix it and when he finally did the ensuing excitement was enough to blow down a house. He wore that watch to Sei Divine and when we got home gingerly took it off and placed it down on his dresser. As he is changing into his pajamas he bumps into the dresser and the watch slowly fell off and cracked on the floor. There are strict rules for no noise past 10 in their apartment building because they live with Italian residents and I'm certain that the long, drawn out "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" that Scorrere shouted woke up the neighbors. I don't even want to talk about how hard I was laughing.
The very next night we made plans to meet up with Divertimenti who promised us another wild night. He definitely delivered. We went to his other bar, The One Eyed Jack, which is this small place over the river that is extremely fun and has become my favorite bar here. Divertimenti is the best, totally rivaling my bar tender from LC, and I'm so incredibly happy to have met him. We got to the Jack and hung around, drinking pitchers of beer and eating DELICIOUS french fries. I'm not kidding, these fries were so good they were nearly better than the fries get at home. The night started getting interesting when people started buying shots. Rounds and rounds of shots. Divertimenti kept testing out his inventions on us, bringing over rounds once every half hour. Some random German guy who couldn't speak a word of English who was friends with Divertimenti kept paying for rounds, too.
It was definitely starting to get wild and Carino and I noticed there was a guy sitting in the bar who was wearing the Thriller jacket. We were cracking up about it and when he turned Carino and I swear we were seeing MJ reincarnate. The guy was the spitting image. We took pictures on his iphone. When the Jack closed it was around 2 in the morning and Christian told us he was taking us someplace special for the rest of the night. He passed us around these little wine cooler type things which made music when you took sips out of them. I found out the next day those drinks were 10% absinthe or something ridiculous like that. We drank our drinks as we walked (which may be my favorite thing about Florence) and within fifteen minutes we were there. I wish I knew where it was located but its the Florentine secret gem and so of course its exact coordinates are a fucking mystery. This place was honestly the coolest club I've ever been to in my life. It opened up into three levels after walking through a dark hallway filled with people rolling and tripping. HOUSE MUSIC was playing, finally, and they even put on some Billy Idol which basically got me wild. The different rooms were all equally awesome and I wish I could describe them to you. I was kind of drunk and the minor details are eluding me. Pretty much everyone in that club was on some drug or another; the DJ was so drugged out she had red lipstick all over her pasty white face and her dark black hair had tangled itself into a rather cozy looking bird's nest. Carino, another of our friends Moda (whose so well-dressed I have a mini-crush on him), and a girl from my apartment building all wound up dancing on stage with me and the DJ for approximately an hour. There was a girl on the bar so drugged up she was slinking across it like a cat, gyrating her hips in awkward ways and hissing at people. The night is honestly a blur but I had more fun at Club Babylon than at any other club I've been to and plan to spend alot of crazy nights there. I promise I didn't do any drugs, it was just such a cool place. I had a couple free shots since Divertimenti knew the bartenders there and then the place started to close. As we walked outside into the alleyway there were Carabinieri (cops) all hushing everyone and making sure we all got out okay. People were pouring out of the place, just as many middle aged people as young teens, and for the first time I noticed that many were dressed up with masks and capes and face-paint. There was even a girl with a tiger-suit on. Divertimenti rounded us all up and we realized that half of us hadn't made it to Babylon. It was now only myself, Selvaggio, Carino, Moda, Poeta, and Divertimenti, and my one friend from our building.
It was 4 a.m. at this point but Divertimenti had one more suprise in store for the night. We walked another fifteen minutes to another place called Montecarla. Seriously, holy shit. I walked in and my jaw hit the floor. Leopard print EVERYTHING. Leopard print seats, pillows, tables, ceiling, bar, staircase. I'm not joking. The place was decked out in so much leopard print I'm certain the interior designer is the reason leopards are on the endangered species list. When we got in we were stopped at the door by a very old man checking IDs. This was extremely odd because there is not drinking age here. Divertimenti gave us these cards, leopard print logos, and I'm now a member of Montecarla. You've got to be a fucking member to get in. We sat down at a table and I was happy to learn that this place offered all its guests free chips and peanuts, party favors like streamers and little blowy-things, free masks to wear, and free-coloring books with day-glo markers. What the fuck? We got free drinks (again) and hung out wearing masks and coloring octopii and frogs in day-glo. Selvaggio and I decided we wanted to check out the upstairs. We walk up into a leopard print jungle littered with fucking beds. I'm not kidding. Circle beds. We sat down for half a second in a corner with some peanuts before two lonely Italian guys came up and plopped down next to us. "Ciao, ragazza, come stai? Do you speak Italian?" Its so easy to spot Americans. Anyway, their names were Massimo and Matteo and they wound up asking us to join them in their beds. We told them we needed to get our coats and we'd be right back, bounded down the stairs two at a time, gathered our friends, and hauled ass out of the place. Montecarla.
The next night we went back to Jack. Divertimenti promised us the superbowl, in English and with front row seating. No crowds of Americans all vying for good locations or Italians questioning the logic of our version of football. It was fabulous. I met an American sushi chef who moved to Italy to cook for them and had a really fun time catching him up on the whats what from the states and in American sports. We got to see the whole game, eat delicious french fries, drink discounted beer because we knew the tender, and hang out with good friends. It was an amazing finish to my crazy weekend and I feel like a rock star. I'm living the rock star lifestyle and I'm loving every second of it. Anyway, I'll update you all on my crazy weekends when I have more.
Arrivederci, for now!
Love, Gabby
No comments:
Post a Comment