Don't judge me...

Sorry about the lack of posts over the past few days, we actually had homework for my class, so I actually had to do something other than explore and blog.  So much has happened so this will be a pretty scattered post.  Also, there are a lot of fun facts about food and such that I think might just get their own post.

OK, so jumping back to last weekend in Florence, I had an adventure with haggling.  I actually failed pretty hard at haggling.  I really wanted a brown leather belt, since when I go to the Vatican next weekend, I have to wear dress shoes (which are brown) and I don't have a brown belt.  We went to this market in some random part of Florence which, if you are claustrophobic, would be a terrible experience.  There were so many people in these tiny isles between racks of colorful purses and scarves and statues and flags and all these other random assortments of items that people associate with Italy.  Deep in the heart of this market, we found this stand that was selling belts and I picked this one that was 18 euro, with the intention of toughing it out and bargaining my way down to 15 at least.  I hate bargaining, so much so that when I bought my car, I called my dad and gave the phone to the dealer so they could haggle over the price.  I decided it was about time for me to face this fear and haggle.  I had these images in my head of being picky and bidding low and slowly accepting the real price I want.  What really happened?  I got to the counter where a woman spoke very little english and muttered "uhh...so...will you take less for this?"  "No."  "Oh.  OK.  That's fine."   So after that great success, as I'm shamefully pulling out 18 euros to pay, the woman grabs the belt, drops down into a squat in front of me, and reaches behind my back.  I was pretty surprised, but she was just testing to see if it would fit.  It was too big.  So she pops back up unscrews the hook thing at one end and just cuts some off.  I guess I looked pretty terrified that my new 18 Euro belt was being cut, especially since I couldn't event get her to cut the price.  She said "You Americans are always so afraid.  To us, this is normal.  If belt doesn't fit, you cut!"  Then she starts shouting "Marco!  Marco!"  I was thinking, oh God, what did I do and why does she think my name is Marco.  Then Marco, who easily could have just walked off the set of the Jersey Shore, appears and punches a whole in the belt and walks away.  Then she screwed the buckle back on, dropped down to a squat again, tested the belt.  Satisfied, she bagged it and sent me on my way.  That was fun...

Me in my tacky shirt.

Back in Siena, I had another market experience.  Every Wednesday a market appears out of nowhere.  It's like an outdoor walmart.  Even the people who go are like walmart people!  I was at home.  The group that went shopping was comprised of me, another guy, and three girls.  In a surprising twist, me and the other guy were more into shopping for clothes than any of the girls and they all just wanted food.  The market does strange things to people...  I found a 90's blue shirt with black material sewed into it to look like a vest and iron on necklaces for only 5 euro.  I bought it, it was made for me after all.  I was now a proud owner of "the tacky shirt"  which now has a song and dance. 

I was mistaken for an Italian!  Boom!  Mission accomplished!  Some tourist (I'm so over tourists at this point, standing and taking pictures, blocking the streets when I just want to get to where I'm going) comes up to me and says "Pardon...Uhh..Plaza Basilico?" in an American accent but in an attempt to speak Italian that landed closer to French.  I chuckled a bit and said "I'm American too.  Now what are you looking for?"  It turns out he was looking for a bus station that I could have walked him to but had trouble explaining where it was, so our poor confused friend had to bumble through asking a real Italian, in poor French, where the bus station was.

 Yesterday, we toured a Vineyard/saffron farm and a chocolate factory.  This meant that we started drinking wine and grappa (which is a type of alcohol similar to vodka made from the skins and stems of wine grapes) at roughly 10:30 in the morning.  Aggressive.  There is also a new rule, no wounded soldiers in Italy, meaning that any food or drink given to the group must be consumed.  Typically, the responsibility falls to me and another guy.  So, brunch was quite an experience.  As was the chocolate factory afterwards.  It was a little hard to focus with close to a bottle and a half of wine metabolizing.  But!  The chocolate was good!  I found, and purchased this chocolate bar.  Sorry for the graphic nature, Italians are weird.

A view from the Vineyard.

The town we meandered after the wine tasting and before the chocolate factory.

Last night, we headed out to our haunt for the weekend.  It is a 7500 sq foot villa built in the 1500's with a sitting room in it's tower, a pool, a tennis court, and a reading garden.  UHH-MAY-ZING.  We continued the days activities well into the night, playing taboo and singing and dancing in the tower, that was likely a bell tower that has been converted. 

Views from the tower.

At some point, I began serenading this girl (the one who is very concerned about the amount of fat in her milk).  The issue is, I thought I was being really smooth.  Upon reflection, the scene looked a little more like this.  She was cowering in the corner of a couch (in the tower) in the fetal position, as I circled her like a vulture, occasionally dropping to one knee, the entire time "singing" (shouting the wrong lyrics to the song that was playing, which was likely some Fall Out Boy song).  This went on for roughly 20 minutes while my "friends" looked on in sympathy and amusement, much like watching cars crash, over and over and over again.  Eventually, the girl found an opening in my circling and scurried off to bed.  I was heartbroken.  But, such is life. 

The Location of The Event.

Today we were going to go to Pisa, but missed our bus by 2 minutes.  Adventure failed.  The plan is to do it tomorrow so hopefully there will be some fun stories about that.  Cheers to the daily adventure.