2nd Last

On Thursday night, we had our final dinner at Elisa's house (my second "last"). The day's build-up to the event brought along some troubles, which naturally always start with the public transportation system. We were supposed to arrive at 7:45 pm in front of the David at Piazzale Michelangelo to meet Elisa, so I left my house around 6:15, knowing I would need at least 45 minutes on the bus with the traffic that I knew would be heavy at that hour. The bus was moving along nicely until it passed the two stops at which I would have been better off disembarking, as I quickly concluded when we were stopped dead in traffic for 45 minutes outside the station. During this time, I was thankful that the bus wasn't packed and that it wasn't a hot day because I probably would have punched someone otherwise. I was minding my own business and very antsy about making it to Elisa's on time, as it was already 7:15 and I was only outside the station (From my house to the station should be a 20 minute bus ride, on a normal day. It had been an hour at this point.) At a certain point, I heard loud gasps coming from the back of the bus and thought "Oh no. Who has a gun?" Fortunately, I was wrong about the gun and turned around to see an amusing scene. A euro-trash, trying-to-look-awesome, Albanian man had opened a beer on the bus, and it exploded all over the elderly woman sitting next to him (that his friend had offered his seat to 15 minutes prior) and 2 women in the seats in front of him. They most certainly weren't the happiest about it, and it made matters worse that he really didn't know how to apologize in Italian. He just sat there smiling stupidly and saying "Scusa," which is completely incorrect because he should have been using the formal, or the plural "you" form. So, for the rest of the ride, everyone was wiping themselves off and trying to ignore the stench of alcoholism within the bus.

When I got to the bus stop to switch to a bus in the direction of Piazzale Michelangelo, I popped my head out and saw Maggie and Maggie motioning for me to stay on the bus. They hopped on and we rode it to the other side of the river, and then walked up to the Piazzale, which was very pleasant. When we got there, we encountered Grace and Carla, and it was about 7:45. I couldn't believe that with all the bus traffic I had made it on time.

When we got together and realized that it would be our last time seeing Elisa and we had forgotten to get her a present (which is HUGE in Italian culture), horror took over our usually pleasant-looking faces. We panicked and scrambled around Piazzale Michelangelo looking for flowers, which were nowhere to be found. All of the stands were selling stupid tourist things that Elisa would most certainly have hated, and probably been offended by. At that moment, I thought to call Jeff because he had yet to arrive, and we hoped he would be near a flower stand or something. Calling him brought along more terror as he informed us that he had been stuck in my same bus traffic and hadn't even made it to his house yet to change!!! He lives  far out of the city, and his bus runs very infrequently, mind you all. Considering the not-so-warm relationship that Jeff has with Elisa, we panicked even more about his tardiness, while still trying to make Elisa's present appear from thin air. Of course, the girls all blamed me in having a flub of less-than-thoughtful thinking. But, we had to move on quickly so as not to waste any time while we were waiting for Elisa to arrive and pick us up.

Suddenly, Carla had a stroke of brilliance. Way back in September, Elisa had taken us on one of our first cultural outings to see a metal artisan. Carla has since then visited the metal artisan religiously and has bought tons of jewelry from him, a lot which she happened to be wearing. Thinking on her feet, she took off one of her adorable bracelets with a huge rose and said "We'll give her this. I really don't mind." We were in no situation to refuse a gift of this type, so we searched for something to wrap it in. Miraculously, Carla had tissue paper in her purse, though I don't know why. We made one of those little sacks out of it and put the bracelet in. However, we had no ribbon to tie it, making the fact that this was a "panic present" very obvious. Then, Grace had a moment of quick thinking when she eyed the Zara (a clothing store) shopping bag that I was holding. She grabbed it from my hand and ripped off the brown handles, which she tied around the tissue paper for what she excused as the "au natural" look. It totally worked.

Elisa arrived in that moment, and Carla shoved the present in her purse. Only 3 girls fit in the car, so Carla and I stayed behind to pretty the present. When Elisa came back for us, she found us giving directions to two women who were lost. They spoke only Spanish, so we used our Italian. It might have worked, but who knows. Elisa drove us up higher on the hill and we arrived at her house, which is walled in and sealed off with one of those awesome automatic gates. I knew that she was well-off just by knowing the area in which she lived, (not to mention that fact that she's an Art History PhD and Florence tour guide, and her husband is an engineer) but this complex was incredible. Carla and I were still shaking about the present thing, but we collected ourselves and walked into the beautiful villa to greet her husband, Marco, who is so charming and adorable, and the cutest little girl I had ever seen, their daughter, Elena Sofia. She is just about 3 years old and quite the talker. Hearing little kids speak better Italian than I do usually makes me melt, so this little peanut gave me the effect times 10. She was wheeling around a little baby carriage with teddies in it, and everyone was completely awestruck by her.

Elisa led us all outside to show us "the view" from her backyard, and Elena Sofia kept wheeling her carriage along with us, chatting up a storm and speaking in beautiful, full sentences. I knew she would be smart just by looking at her parents, but I was still very shocked and impressed. Apparently, she's "picking up" English too because Elisa and Marco speak it so often. We got to her backyard and saw their personal olive grove from which they make olive oil, and the most spectacular private view of the Florence skyline that I had ever seen. What an unbelievable piece of property. Marco explained to us that his great-grandfather had bought the land a long time ago, and now the huge villas are sectioned off to house a large part of his family. So cool.

We went inside and sat down to the dinner that Andrea and Kevin had prepared as their ICIP final presentation. (They both took a cooking class with Elisa's mother for their ICIPs). All of the food was amazing. We had a pesto lasagna and a vegetable lasagna, which were both heavenly. Then we had meat that was so soft we didn't even need knives. For our side dish, we had vegetable spring rolls, wrapped in cabbage leaves. Dessert consisted of tiramisu and strawberries, and both were incredibly delicious, especially considering the fact that strawberries are now in season. They really know what they're doing here in Italy with the cuisine.

To backtrack, by the end of the pasta course, it was 9 pm and Jeff still hadn't arrived. Elisa was getting PISSED because she felt that he hadn't taken her invitation to dinner seriously. Grace called Jeff to find out that he had been waiting at his bus stop, and the man waiting next to him had flipped off the driver, so he drove past the stop as punishment. So aside from being late to begin with, everything seemed to be working against him. He had made it to the bottom of Piazzale Michelangelo and was planning to walk up to the meeting spot that we had all left from about 1.5 hours before. Elisa was still very angry and sent her mother to pick him up in the piazza, even though she had no idea what he looked like. Jeff later informed us that she had been driving around the piazza screaming Jeff's name out the window, in order to find him. Just imagine the image of an old lady trying to find her date, which is exactly what it seemed like.

During the main course, Jeff walked in the door and Elisa's face lit up in sheer joy. He made the most perfect entrance, wearing khakis, a button down and a BOW TIE and carrying the flowers that I had made him buy during our panic session. At that point, it was better that Jeff had taken the credit for the flowers; he needed it to survive Elisa. Once Jeff walked in, the tension in the air was cleared and Elisa was so pleased that Jeff had been late because he had been taking his preparation for the dinner so seriously, as she thought.

During the meal, we all described our experiences with our ICIP projects and she gave us little Pinocchio's. Then, it was time to give her our present. Everyone did a great job in keeping a straight face and Elisa absolutely loved the bracelet! She put it right on and commented excitedly at how fondly we must have remembered our first cultural outing together to get her a bracelet from the actual site. Carla was sitting right next to her and says she saw the complete happiness in her eyes when she opened our gift. We breathed a sigh of relief after our quick thinking, and the dinner was complete.

At 10:30, a hired driver came to the house to pick us all up. We hugged Elisa goodbye and thanked her, and she actually cried! We're thinking that she probably liked us a lot more than people in other years because we were actually polite to her and thought to give her a present, which I'm sure she doesn't get often. I think we all started off on the wrong foot with her because she was very difficult to have as a tutor. Once second semester rolled around and we saw her only for non school-related things, she was very pleasant and fun to be around. So, we were actually sad to say goodbye in thinking about all the great outings she had done with us and all the strings she had pulled to make us happy at school.

Even though the hired driver was supposed to take us all to our respective homes, we were in a good mood and requested to be driven into the city center. We ended up partying and dancing until about 3 am. What an awesome night.

I forgot to mention that Carla was completely convinced that Marco, Elisa's husband, was American. He speaks English sooo perfectly with the right inflection, accent, and comedic timing that I would most certainly believe it if he had told me he were American. I can't believe how intelligent these people are. It's just amazing. Even though Elisa was a little tough to us in the beginning of the year, I'm certainly going to keep in touch with her. She's a great contact in Italy if I ever want to come over again to work or something.

So, that's another tearful "last" under the belt. Now I'm going shoe shopping :)

A dopo!