I'm NOT Meant to Own a Vespa...
So, funny story.
I'm not meant own a Vespa.
Damn.
Yeah. So those of you who were able to talk to me before I left for this trip, know that riding a Vespa is on my bucket list. And yes, at twenty five years old, I have formulated a sort of bucket list that, well, is only getting longer and longer as I get older. (Btw, I'm now putting on there: Return to Italy being able to speak a least basic Italian...another story for a later date...)
Anyway, riding a Vespa is on my bucket list.
I succeeded. Don't get me wrong, I rode a Vespa and it was in Italy no less.
Wait. Let me back track. So, yesterday we were supposed to go to Cinque Terre. Yes, when I left you all in my last post, that was the plan. Vespa touring was for Monday. Long story short, Chris and I arrived fifteen minutes early at the meeting place for the hiking Cinque Terre tour. We saw no one who looked like they were in such a group, so we grabbed McDonalds (interesting in Italy, I might add, but like everything else over here, Mickey D's too, tastes better) and ran back out to make sure our group hadn't formed, much less left. When the time became 8 AM and our group was still no where to be found, we didn't think too much of it. Why? Because if I've learned anything about the difference between the states and Italy it's this:
In America: if you're early, you're on time. If you're on time, you're late. And if you're late, you're dead.
In Italy: If you're early, no one is there. If you're on time, you're early. And if you're late, you're on time.
Nothing here has ever started on time but finally at 8:10, we find a man looking for his Tuscany tour group and we ask him where the Cinque tour is and he informs us that they have already left.
To make an even longer story short: This pisses both me and Chris off to no end, the man tells us there's nothing he can do and that the tour left on time (with 55 other people, which we apparently missed. We missed a group of 55 people. Yeeeaahhhh ok...), and in the end all of us are basically yelling/talking in stern voices, fighting over whether or not the tour group left early, or on time, or whatever the hell the time they left. Finally, I go into an alternate mode finally accepting that no one is going to turn around to get us and that now, our options are few. I take a deep breath, and (sort of) calmly tell the man we have a Vespa tour on Monday and this our only day that we can go to Cinque Terre. He tells us that he knows the company that the Vespa tour is and that he can switch the tour days. I look at Chris who is turned around, still rightfully pissed beyond belief and I make the executive decision by saying yes.
So, like that, we are on our way to the Vespa tour, I get a signature from the man that Monday we will go to Cinque Terre, and the plans are changed.
We get on a tour bus to drive to Chianti and we drive through the country side. It's so gorgeous. So green. And even the camp site is beautiful. Little did any of us know that that was only the beginning of what we would see that day. We arrive and we meet Andrea, an older (probably late 30s or so?) tall, lanky, gaunt looking man with a t-shirt that too short for his long torso and a thin, useless but trendy white scarf wrapped around his neck. The other guide/teacher was a younger man, a teddy bear type of guy, named Steve. Incredible dark olive skin that I instantly jealous of (God, do I need a tan more than ever), green eyes, black curly hair, and an interesting American/Italian accent that I can't get a handle on. Probably like my Southern accent to some, Steve sounds completely American except on a few words or phrases that make it undeniable that he's either Italian or lived here for a number of years.
I practice on the Vespa. I want to drive the Vespa. And I do. Oh, I do. But I just can't the handle of the turns and it's then that Steve offers for me to just ride behind him. Although I didn't want to accept defeat and a little on the embarressed side, I reluctantly decide to take him up on his offer. Although my pride is a little hurt, the minute I jumped on the back of his motor vehicle and I realize it's an insane course! Hills, bumps, pot holes, country side, small spaces, cars veering around and in front of us, bikes, pedestrians. Holy shit. Thank you GOD I did not ride by myself.
One woman had decided back at the camp to do the same and within ten minutes of the tour, another woman practically crashed (more like fell over) and opted to ride on the back of her husband's Vespa. After that, I didn't feel quite so naive about the whole Vespa 'thing' and driving one in the country. And this way, I could actually take video and enoy the countryside instead of freaking out the entire time.
As we drive and I gasp at, well, everything, Steven, I think, gets a kick out of it. We have an awesome conversation. I ask him how old he is and when his birthday is and he said he turned twenty five in December. When I reply that he's a Sagittarius, he looks back and says, "I would assume you were born in Februrary?" I tell him March and he says, "I figured you were a Pisces."
Awesome. Just awesome.
Steve also teaches me curse words in Italian. I'll save that for later. ;) And we talk about his American accent and his job with the Vespa tours. It's an eight month gig and then he gets the rest of the time off to see his some of his family in Boston and in Florida, hence the American side of his accent. We talk about my career as a dancer/singer and he of course asks if I'm on Broadway. When I tell him that I only audition for Broadway and one day want to be, he says "Well, you must be famous then." I tell him not to be mistaken, and he stops me to say, "Do you have a website?" I say yes and he throws his hands up in the air, "See, I told you. You're famous."
Okay, if Steven wants to think that I'm famous, so be it.
The tour has a lot of stops along the way. Steve and Andrea both share the duties in telling us about certain regions, how they plant and pick olive trees and wine vinyards. ONE olive tree only creates 2 liters of olive oil. And when we stop for lunch at this beautiful wineary on the top of a huge hill within a valley, we get to see the vaults where the wine and olive oil are kept.
We get to see the new age machines that sepearte the water from the oil but we even see the old teracatta tubs that they used to seperate the two. Unlike wine, olive oil only has to set for about 20-ish days (I can't remember the exact amount) in these huge terracta pots. They have to stay at a perfect temperature, not too hot and not too cold and out of the sun. The sun ruins olive oil, so, advice, if you have some at home (even the American made with lotso crap in it, like I do) keep it out of the sun. Also, interesting fact, extra virgin olive oil, which is the only kind of olive oil that these places in Chianti creates, means the first press of the olive. That initial squeeze that, interestingly enough, is actually green in color and is quite spicy until it has set. If it's organic, know that it'll probably be (and should be) green and spicy, because they don't let it set. It's a whole different explosion for the taste buds-organic verses extra virgin. I was one of the only ones who loved the organic-I thought it was molto bene.
Steven also talked about the wine and how it is stored. There is an entire and lengthy process for Chianti wine to become 'official', aside from making the wine itself. That process itself would take me forever to spell it out to you all but know that if there is a pink label on the outside rim of the Chianti, it's real. If there's no pink label, it's not 100% true Chianti wine. The process to just make the wine itself takes no less than two years and the wine is put in the famous French crate barrells that everyone is used to seeing. These French barrells cost about 700 Euros and can ony be used once. Interestingly enough, they use rubberized corks to plug the wine while it sets, allowing for the red wine to slowly breathe unlike the corks that are used when we receive a bottle of wine.
Also, little fun fact: Wine is the color that it is because when they intially put it in huge stainless steel vaults, they leave the skin on the grapes. Without the skin, until it is crushed and is put into these wooden barrells, wine would not have the color that it has.
We sit down to have an awesome meal and I have the best wine I've ever had known as Brillo, a red sangiovese wine. O.M.G. Could drink that all day long. And we have great conversation with our group, who are from all over and every single person is so nice. And, if I might add, cute when each one asks if I'm going to school in New York. Every single one. Oh sigh, what can you do?
It's here too that it's the first time that I really appreciate and take to heart the saying, "Stop to smell the roses." I can't get enough of how all, I mean all, of the flowers smell here-snap dragons, roses, simple flowers of every kind. Intoxicating. The whole view. No pictures could even begin to do justice to the places we stopped at, winery included.
We stop at a gelato place where I get Almafi (aka Lemoncello-holy moly. It's, in a word, orgasmic.) and strawberry combined. And on the way back, Steven has to go drive someone back from a bike tour who can't take the biking anymore (I can't imagine doing that tour!) so Andrea tells me I will be riding with him. On the way, I tell him that I have never wanted to learn a language so badly and he tells me, "Well the best way to learn Italian, is to speak Italian." I laugh but then on the insanely fast ride back (I swear to God, I felt like we were in Bourne Identity. It was AWESOME.) he speaks in Italian practically the whole time. I mimick and try to deceifer what he's says and he helps and tutors me as we talk in Italian/English the whole time until we get back at the camp.
So, in short, I am not meant to own a Vespa but I sure as hell am meant to ride on one.
We're dropped off back in the city and Chris and I enjoy a great meal at a pizzeria where we got our first true Italian bruchetta with tomatoes (which can I just tell you how amazing their tomatoes are here?! I mean, unlike any that I've ever had!) and I'm super brave and order pizza with anchovies. Unlike the pastry I had during the pub crawl in Venice, this time their beady little eyes are looking up at me. I close my eyes and bite in. And...I adore it. Look out friends. I'm gonna be the first friend that asks for anchovies on her pizza!
Chris and I then get gelato-twice in one day, a first for us, but I know it's not the last and like it is for us in our nature here in Italy, slowly wander home. After a glass of wine from the vinyard that we purchased while there, I pass out on the orange bed here at the Hotel Florenzia.
Ahhh. This is the life.
Remember everyone. Stop and smell the roses.
Like, really.
Ciao bella!
Love love,
Adrienne
I'm not meant own a Vespa.
Damn.
Yeah. So those of you who were able to talk to me before I left for this trip, know that riding a Vespa is on my bucket list. And yes, at twenty five years old, I have formulated a sort of bucket list that, well, is only getting longer and longer as I get older. (Btw, I'm now putting on there: Return to Italy being able to speak a least basic Italian...another story for a later date...)
Anyway, riding a Vespa is on my bucket list.
I succeeded. Don't get me wrong, I rode a Vespa and it was in Italy no less.
Wait. Let me back track. So, yesterday we were supposed to go to Cinque Terre. Yes, when I left you all in my last post, that was the plan. Vespa touring was for Monday. Long story short, Chris and I arrived fifteen minutes early at the meeting place for the hiking Cinque Terre tour. We saw no one who looked like they were in such a group, so we grabbed McDonalds (interesting in Italy, I might add, but like everything else over here, Mickey D's too, tastes better) and ran back out to make sure our group hadn't formed, much less left. When the time became 8 AM and our group was still no where to be found, we didn't think too much of it. Why? Because if I've learned anything about the difference between the states and Italy it's this:
In America: if you're early, you're on time. If you're on time, you're late. And if you're late, you're dead.
In Italy: If you're early, no one is there. If you're on time, you're early. And if you're late, you're on time.
Nothing here has ever started on time but finally at 8:10, we find a man looking for his Tuscany tour group and we ask him where the Cinque tour is and he informs us that they have already left.
To make an even longer story short: This pisses both me and Chris off to no end, the man tells us there's nothing he can do and that the tour left on time (with 55 other people, which we apparently missed. We missed a group of 55 people. Yeeeaahhhh ok...), and in the end all of us are basically yelling/talking in stern voices, fighting over whether or not the tour group left early, or on time, or whatever the hell the time they left. Finally, I go into an alternate mode finally accepting that no one is going to turn around to get us and that now, our options are few. I take a deep breath, and (sort of) calmly tell the man we have a Vespa tour on Monday and this our only day that we can go to Cinque Terre. He tells us that he knows the company that the Vespa tour is and that he can switch the tour days. I look at Chris who is turned around, still rightfully pissed beyond belief and I make the executive decision by saying yes.
So, like that, we are on our way to the Vespa tour, I get a signature from the man that Monday we will go to Cinque Terre, and the plans are changed.
We get on a tour bus to drive to Chianti and we drive through the country side. It's so gorgeous. So green. And even the camp site is beautiful. Little did any of us know that that was only the beginning of what we would see that day. We arrive and we meet Andrea, an older (probably late 30s or so?) tall, lanky, gaunt looking man with a t-shirt that too short for his long torso and a thin, useless but trendy white scarf wrapped around his neck. The other guide/teacher was a younger man, a teddy bear type of guy, named Steve. Incredible dark olive skin that I instantly jealous of (God, do I need a tan more than ever), green eyes, black curly hair, and an interesting American/Italian accent that I can't get a handle on. Probably like my Southern accent to some, Steve sounds completely American except on a few words or phrases that make it undeniable that he's either Italian or lived here for a number of years.
I practice on the Vespa. I want to drive the Vespa. And I do. Oh, I do. But I just can't the handle of the turns and it's then that Steve offers for me to just ride behind him. Although I didn't want to accept defeat and a little on the embarressed side, I reluctantly decide to take him up on his offer. Although my pride is a little hurt, the minute I jumped on the back of his motor vehicle and I realize it's an insane course! Hills, bumps, pot holes, country side, small spaces, cars veering around and in front of us, bikes, pedestrians. Holy shit. Thank you GOD I did not ride by myself.
One woman had decided back at the camp to do the same and within ten minutes of the tour, another woman practically crashed (more like fell over) and opted to ride on the back of her husband's Vespa. After that, I didn't feel quite so naive about the whole Vespa 'thing' and driving one in the country. And this way, I could actually take video and enoy the countryside instead of freaking out the entire time.
As we drive and I gasp at, well, everything, Steven, I think, gets a kick out of it. We have an awesome conversation. I ask him how old he is and when his birthday is and he said he turned twenty five in December. When I reply that he's a Sagittarius, he looks back and says, "I would assume you were born in Februrary?" I tell him March and he says, "I figured you were a Pisces."
Awesome. Just awesome.
Steve also teaches me curse words in Italian. I'll save that for later. ;) And we talk about his American accent and his job with the Vespa tours. It's an eight month gig and then he gets the rest of the time off to see his some of his family in Boston and in Florida, hence the American side of his accent. We talk about my career as a dancer/singer and he of course asks if I'm on Broadway. When I tell him that I only audition for Broadway and one day want to be, he says "Well, you must be famous then." I tell him not to be mistaken, and he stops me to say, "Do you have a website?" I say yes and he throws his hands up in the air, "See, I told you. You're famous."
Okay, if Steven wants to think that I'm famous, so be it.
The tour has a lot of stops along the way. Steve and Andrea both share the duties in telling us about certain regions, how they plant and pick olive trees and wine vinyards. ONE olive tree only creates 2 liters of olive oil. And when we stop for lunch at this beautiful wineary on the top of a huge hill within a valley, we get to see the vaults where the wine and olive oil are kept.
We get to see the new age machines that sepearte the water from the oil but we even see the old teracatta tubs that they used to seperate the two. Unlike wine, olive oil only has to set for about 20-ish days (I can't remember the exact amount) in these huge terracta pots. They have to stay at a perfect temperature, not too hot and not too cold and out of the sun. The sun ruins olive oil, so, advice, if you have some at home (even the American made with lotso crap in it, like I do) keep it out of the sun. Also, interesting fact, extra virgin olive oil, which is the only kind of olive oil that these places in Chianti creates, means the first press of the olive. That initial squeeze that, interestingly enough, is actually green in color and is quite spicy until it has set. If it's organic, know that it'll probably be (and should be) green and spicy, because they don't let it set. It's a whole different explosion for the taste buds-organic verses extra virgin. I was one of the only ones who loved the organic-I thought it was molto bene.
Steven also talked about the wine and how it is stored. There is an entire and lengthy process for Chianti wine to become 'official', aside from making the wine itself. That process itself would take me forever to spell it out to you all but know that if there is a pink label on the outside rim of the Chianti, it's real. If there's no pink label, it's not 100% true Chianti wine. The process to just make the wine itself takes no less than two years and the wine is put in the famous French crate barrells that everyone is used to seeing. These French barrells cost about 700 Euros and can ony be used once. Interestingly enough, they use rubberized corks to plug the wine while it sets, allowing for the red wine to slowly breathe unlike the corks that are used when we receive a bottle of wine.
Also, little fun fact: Wine is the color that it is because when they intially put it in huge stainless steel vaults, they leave the skin on the grapes. Without the skin, until it is crushed and is put into these wooden barrells, wine would not have the color that it has.
We sit down to have an awesome meal and I have the best wine I've ever had known as Brillo, a red sangiovese wine. O.M.G. Could drink that all day long. And we have great conversation with our group, who are from all over and every single person is so nice. And, if I might add, cute when each one asks if I'm going to school in New York. Every single one. Oh sigh, what can you do?
It's here too that it's the first time that I really appreciate and take to heart the saying, "Stop to smell the roses." I can't get enough of how all, I mean all, of the flowers smell here-snap dragons, roses, simple flowers of every kind. Intoxicating. The whole view. No pictures could even begin to do justice to the places we stopped at, winery included.
We stop at a gelato place where I get Almafi (aka Lemoncello-holy moly. It's, in a word, orgasmic.) and strawberry combined. And on the way back, Steven has to go drive someone back from a bike tour who can't take the biking anymore (I can't imagine doing that tour!) so Andrea tells me I will be riding with him. On the way, I tell him that I have never wanted to learn a language so badly and he tells me, "Well the best way to learn Italian, is to speak Italian." I laugh but then on the insanely fast ride back (I swear to God, I felt like we were in Bourne Identity. It was AWESOME.) he speaks in Italian practically the whole time. I mimick and try to deceifer what he's says and he helps and tutors me as we talk in Italian/English the whole time until we get back at the camp.
So, in short, I am not meant to own a Vespa but I sure as hell am meant to ride on one.
We're dropped off back in the city and Chris and I enjoy a great meal at a pizzeria where we got our first true Italian bruchetta with tomatoes (which can I just tell you how amazing their tomatoes are here?! I mean, unlike any that I've ever had!) and I'm super brave and order pizza with anchovies. Unlike the pastry I had during the pub crawl in Venice, this time their beady little eyes are looking up at me. I close my eyes and bite in. And...I adore it. Look out friends. I'm gonna be the first friend that asks for anchovies on her pizza!
Chris and I then get gelato-twice in one day, a first for us, but I know it's not the last and like it is for us in our nature here in Italy, slowly wander home. After a glass of wine from the vinyard that we purchased while there, I pass out on the orange bed here at the Hotel Florenzia.
Ahhh. This is the life.
Remember everyone. Stop and smell the roses.
Like, really.
Ciao bella!
Love love,
Adrienne
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