A classy night

Buona sera a tutti!

Last night, we were lucky enough to eat free (well, it's included in our tuition for Holy Cross) at one of the most famous restaurants in Florence, La Giostra. At 7pm, we all met Elisa outside of the place and when we entered, there was a beautiful long table set up for us with pretty candles and linens. Elisa made sure that we ordered fast, because we had to be out of there by 8:30. We were automatically given champagne and 2 enormous appetizer platters because I assume those things get factored into the high meal prices. Every table gets them, and I thought they were a fabulous idea in place of bread that would have just filled me up anyway. Our platters included spinach and ricotta balls, rabbit and chicken crostini, tomato bruschetta, mini caprese salad pieces, zucchini stuffed with cheese and bread crumbs, red peppers soaked in balsamic vinaigrette, grilled eggplant slices soaked in olive oil, squash and some kind of mayo concoction, and mortadella slices. Elisa also ordered us red wine, and the waiters had a very interesting presentation process. They did all these crazy things with their hands and smelling the corks, and then they carefully poured the wine into a decanter. I now understand why their cheapest bottle of wine is 25 euro. What a fancy process!

I cannot even describe how fabulous this dinner was. Apart from the warm and cozy ambiance, the food was out of this world. For my first course, I ordered pear and pecorino ravioli, which is La Giostra's specialty. I easily understood why when I took my first bite. These ravioli were sooo rich with just the slightest hint of sweetness and an amazing flavor of pecorino. I was in food heaven. For my second course, I had veal with a lemon marsala sauce, and that was another draw-dropper. It came with perfectly seasoned potatoes, sweet peppers drenched in balsamic vinaigrette, and chopped eggplant. It was so delicious and one of a kind that I ignored my "I'm full" warnings halfway through the meal and finished the whole thing. Sadly, and probably fortunately, we didn't have time for dessert which was supposed to be amazing, according to Elisa. Looks like I'll be coming back with my Dad though, so we'll try it then :)

Dinner conversation was interesting, as it consisted of Elisa explaining her knowledge of the family who owns La Giostra. Apparently, the owner's son wears one bracelet for each woman that he has slept with. Right after she told us this, the legendary son (as a waiter) came strolling through the dining room with bracelets on both arms that stretched from his wrists to 3 inches before his elbows. There must have been about 50-75 of those very thin ones on each arm, and a few bulkier ones. Maybe the bulkier bracelets mean that those women were more important? Haha who knows.

Anyway, we left dinner very full and happy and headed to Il Teatro Verdi, just a 5 minute walk away. Elisa had gotten us all tickets to see Renzo Arbore, a very famous Italian singer from Naples. He's in his 70's now, so the crowd was generally pretty old but Elisa assured us that he would be singing "O Sole Mio," so we got ourselves psyched anyway. We had great seats right on the ground level, and the location made sense when I saw that each ticket had gone to Elisa for about 67 euro. Whoa!

While we waited for the show to start, I met Elisa's husband Marco, who was incredibly nice. After talking to him I realized how their marriage works. He seems to be a pretty laid back guy and Elisa can be very stressed and uptight. However, they are both equally (and highly) intelligent, and it seems to me that Elisa leaves her work for the daytime and keeps it as away from her marriage as possible. As my past tales have revealed, she's VERY scary when it comes to my group of friends and our academic achievements, but she was sooo relaxed last night that I actually enjoyed her presence! Shocking, I know. As for the good people-watching to be done in the theater, which there always is, we easily discovered an old woman who was questionably drunk, strutting back and forth through our aisle. (We had the first row of the second section, so it was the area where people walked to get to their seats). She was wearing a long, red lace dress with long sleeves and very red and runny lipstick. What a sight! The reason we thought that she had to have been drunk attributes to the fact that she tripped over Grace's foot and then glared at her for "being in her way," even though Grace had been sitting properly in her seat. We got a good initial laugh out of this woman, and there was still more to come.

Renzo Arbore opened up with a really upbeat song that we all loved. I don't think any of us had heard it before, but it was definitely Neapolitan and very foot-tapping worthy. Mid-way through the show, he got a little lovey and slow with his songs, so we had a hard time staying awake, especially after all of that red wine with dinner. I made it through, but some others dozed off for a few songs. Then, instead of making an intermission, Renzo stepped offstage for a break and sent a female barbershop trio into the spotlight. They called themselves The Blue Dolls, and they were VERY 50's. I thought they had amazing voices though, and really did a great job. Two were actually Florentine women, so that was pretty cool!

After his break, Renzo came back on stage and led into some more upbeat songs, including an attempt at Frank Sinatra in English as a dedication to NYC. He quickly used whatever Sinatra song it was (I couldn't figure it out for the life of me) to segue-way into something Italian because there was no chance in masking that heavy Neapolitan accent. I only recognized a few of the rest that he sang, but they were all great and had us clapping furiously to the beat. Elisa was next to me and waving her arms in the air like a crazy woman. She actually hit me in the head at one point, but I don't think she noticed. While our group was definitely the youngest and most spirited there, the old folks were pretty close in the energy department. They were going NUTS for this guy!!! Lots of people were standing, screaming, singing and clapping. Our "lady in red" was so wired that she tapped Jeff on the shoulder (she was sitting directly behind him) and asked him to scream "Luna Rossa" as a song request for her, because she wasn't able to yell it loud enough herself. Pretty soon after that, she left her seat and walked directly to the front of theater and stood in the middle of the aisle, dancing and clapping for Renzo all alone. That gave us another reason to believe that she was wasted... or just out of her mind. The funniest part was, she rocked herself back and forth, as if she were pretending that Renzo was singing directly to her, especially when the love songs came on. We couldn't contain ourselves from laughing. Even Elisa was loving it.

The show lasted 3 hours with no break, and he never sang "O Sole Mio." We were shocked and slightly disappointed by that little detail, but had an amazing time all the same. He really got the crowd going and we had a great time singing along and dancing to what we both recognized and didn't. The show let out around 12:15 am, and Elisa had arranged rides for all of us to get home. Her husband Marco was assigned to accompany Maggie Rossi, Maggie Wright, Andrea and myself to our respective houses. In the time that he took to bring us home, Andrea and I really struck up a nice acquaintance with him. He initiated the conversation by speaking to us in the most perfect English that I had ever heard a foreigner speak. Though he is 100% Italian, he had no accent whatsoever, and better grammar and sentence structure than a lot of people I know. He was so friendly and excited to learn about us that he made the car ride very comfortable, right from the beginning.  We came to find out that he had been studying English since Kindergarten and that now he is publishing and researching in English for his geo-chemical engineering profession. Whoa.

So, last night turned out to be really great. I ended up with a huge stomach ache while I was lying in bed, trying to get to sleep, but I'm pretty sure it was worth it. Also, Renzo Arbore is most certainly worth a listen for those that don't know who he is. He actually toured NYC and Atlantic City this past year and Florence (last night) was the last leg of his tour. I'll remember this one, and the "lady in red," forever.

Tomorrow is St. Patty's Day and we've decided to go out. I can't imagine Florence is too big on Irish culture, seeing as Maria Pia completely forgot when we informed her of our plans, but the Irish and English pubs in the center know what's going on. It will be a unique St. Patty's Day this year.

Buona notte!