ieri sera..... Festa di Carnevale/ Compleanno di Fabio

Last night I accompanied my friends Jim and Jessica to a real italian party. Not quite sure what to expect, I was nervous... There were many freakouts:

• What kind of wine do I bring? (followed by facebook chatting with my wine tasting professor about getting the 'wrong wine' which caused another freakout, I don't want them to think I am an imbecille)
• What do I wear? Am I going to be the only idiot dressed up?
• How the hell is Jim going to get here/home?

My friend Jim lives kind of far from the rest of us. He's in a homestay and normally rides his bike to school or takes the bus. Jim called me at 11 to say his bike was broken and he didn't know when the last bus was. He was going to walk.... 5 miles or so I think. IMBECILLE! Five minutes, later he was at my door... HUH?

I decided not to ask questions, grabbed my mask, the bottle of Brachetto that I mistakenly bought (I wanted a different vineyard's Brachetto, one of the best Spumante's I've ever tasted, oh well) and we went downstairs to meet Jess on the fronts steps of the Duomo AKA my front yard. With our sparkly masks, and sparkly heels (Jim was jealous) we were ready to take on a real night in Italy.

We couldn't figure out how to get into the apartment-- felt stupid, like any other day in Italy. Some raggazzi (guys) rode their bikes up to us, they were headed to the same festa and they helped us get in. We found Fabio (the birthday boy, and our new friend from last weekend), he was ready to celebrate with us. CLEARLY He was dressed up as a doctor and was trying to tell the ladies he was a gynecologist, gross; but I can appreciate the humor and am happy to be familiar enough with people here to put up with such jokes! Meet Fabio:

Jess and I were of course uncomfortable to start but it just took a minute to take in the surroundings and relax. We made friends with a very sweet blonde girl from BELGIUM (I know I said Berlin in the video below, I can barely speak English, but thats a story for another blog post).

My fake name came in handy again last night. Some italians laugh at me when I say 'My name is Jill but you can call me Giulia if it's easier'; while others are so thankful that I've said a familiar name after not understanding what my name is. However, I got another name that was more popular-- Nicole, as in Nicole Kidman. I'll take it. It's always a good day when I get compared to her (especially considering my sorority sisters think I look like a girl from the MTV show 'Teen Mom', Nicole is a HUGE upgrade).

So, like I said it was a birthday party, there was of course singing and cake. I don't know how many times I was handed cake and I had to say 'Non posso mangiare questa, sono celiaca', but it's nice for that to be enough here. At home I would have to explain myself, italians get it and that makes me VERY happy.

My friend Jim has a video blog and was taking videos for it at the party, going to be so embarrassing... oh well. Anyways, his video-ing (I don't use 'film' as a verb unless I'm actually shooting on film, which is never) inspired me to shoot a vlog too. The obvious choice was to do this in the bathroom of Fabio's apartment, that is, until someone else had to use it. Anyways I wanted to share with the people back home one of the (few) differences that was clear between an american party and and italian party. So check it out.

Other differences included:

• The beverage selection: there was a dining table filled with wine bottles and like two bottles of gin. The only beer I saw was in a girl's hand
• The music, we listened to a lot of familiar songs, but I of course wanted to sing along and italians don't seem to sing along to american music, it's as it its another language to them or something haha
• People smoke inside-- 'Dear Zara dress, I'm sorry I will wash you this weekend'
• Nobody got super drunk 

Cool things that happened at the party:

• was given a poem by a guy from Cortona, I'll keep it with my note from 'Riccardo'
• correctly guessed where two people were from based on how their italian sounded
• Met a girl from Ghent, Belgium (What up Flemish people?) and a boy from Austria who invited me to visit his homeland one weekend this semester
• got invited to another festa questa fine-settimana (this weekend). It's a BBQ and we are TOTALLY going

Right now I desperately need a shower, and to start packing for Dublin. Get this: It's warmer in Dublin than Florence right now. It's like a vacation for me! Anyway, I have to take a 330 AM bus to get to the airport because the trains don't start leaving until 6 which is too late for my 7 am flight. A nap is going to be super awkward because I have class from 6 to 830 tonight. I may be running on fumes and irish coffee this weekend I think I'm okay with that. All part of the experience.

I have my very first hostel experience to look forward to tomorrow night, if you have tips send them my way! Here's hoping I don't have any awkward run-ins while I'm there. 

Ciao Tutti! A Presto...