Two Guys, A Girl, and A Birthday (or Cinque Dolce Vita)

Behind every good story are two crazy men. Whether it was a cooky waiter and wine maker, Jay and Flavio putting together a birthday party, or some great Britains building the 007 set.

We had one of those weekends where unexpectedly one exciting thing after another just popped up and handed us a good time. This couldn’t have come at a better time, as this weekend was Joann’s birthday. A weekend I had been anticipating and hoping to make fun and memorable. Admittedly the planning was a bit sparse and the means to fund anything crazy had long been gone, but the universe had my back on this one and we came out on top.

Friday night was amazing for a different reason than the rest. Joann and I, after planning to go out and paint the town red, end up staying in drinking some bottles of wine, singing some Weezer and doing a puzzle. Yes, on paper this is not exciting. But when you deal with long distance for a year, these are the kinds of little nooks and crannies in a relationship that you begged for and are what make seemingly mundane, boring evenings achingly fun.

We woke up earlier on Saturday with great intentions. We were going to rent a car for the weekend to head out to the Tuscan countryside and tour some vineyards. It turns out all the cars are manual. This would not present too large of a problem except that Joann does not drive stick and I am out of practice (and the last place I want to be rusty is on a steep cobblestone street where once I ram some old Italian lady in her Alfa Romeo I could not even charm my way out of a lawsuit). The car idea is out and so, in turn, is the sun so we opt for a walk around Siena to start our day. As we are happily strolling hand in hand it becomes apparent that every woman we are passing is carrying the same lock of golden flowers. Curious, I know. As it were Saturday, March 8th is La Festa Della Donna (international women’s day). This seemed redundant to me as I thought, as men, we spent our whole lives trying to make women feel special and loved, this, after all, is why they bless us with kissing, common sense, and the like. But I was mistaken, and this is a day dedicated to the woman, Venus, The Omega, Joann, Nancy, all things fallopian and uterine. Now growing up in a household where equal rights were served daily with my Frosted Flakes, I was fully prepared and embraced the festivities (read: scrambled to find Joann some of those damn golden flowers as soon as I could).

Clouds start to loom, so we break for a nice lunch in the Campo. There is a big to-do going on, so we decide to investigate. It seems that the equivalent of the Tour De France in Italy is ending today, and will finish in our very own Siena, our very own little Piazza del Campo…in about fifteen minutes. We do the only thing we can think of, grab some Fritelle (dough fried in desert wine…umm, yes please) and become instant cycling fans cheering on God knows who as they race toward the finish. Literally as the race ends so does my interest, so we head home to get ready for the big Birthday night out.

We decide on dinner in Piazza Del Mercato and a great little place called Papei. We sit down in the back and are quickly greeted by one of the two quirky characters that would stick out this weekend. Our waiter, a man of about 70 years, arrives and immediately starts guessing our nationalities. “He is Israeli and you are Spanish”…umm, close, but no, We go through this routine two more times before he decided it is ok to serve us now. Dinner is delightful but nothing of note. I leave in the middle to go to the “bathroom” and inform our waiter, well our busboy, that it is Joann’s birthday and if we could have a small piece of cake after our main course it would be really nice. He nods in half-agreement, half-whatthefuckareyousaying. I return to our table to find that our waiter has begun listing his Jewish friends (in my honor) one of them including “the best plastic surgeon in the world”…he makes a bit boobs gesture and scurries off. Soon after, our bus boy returns with two pieces of cake, no candles, but a good effort indeed. He starts to sing the classic birthday song but only gets as far as , “Happy Birthday to You, Happy Birthday to…is this ok?”. I assured him that it was perfect and he quickly scampered back toward the kitchen. We enjoy them happily and are more than stuffed. It seems somewhere along the way our busboy conveyed to our waiter that it was her birthday and he hurriedly brings us dessert number 2, a small piece of a new cake, complete with an unlit birthday candle. He half-heartedly looked for a lighter on the walk over but decided that it would be just fine with the candle sans flame. We, after all, would get the point. I borrow a lighter from our friendly neighbors one table over and Joann blows out the candle making her wish. Not two minutes later the friendly waiter returns with dessert number 3. A small apple tort. Joann insists that she is full and cannot eat anymore, but implies that perhaps I would eat it. I do take one bite then do the “spread it around the plate so it looks like we ate more” move and set it aside. At this point we ask for our check, but instead receive dessert number 4. Another piece of yet another cake. I swear this one could have been the estranged Italian cousin of the chocolate éclairs at River Road Bakery. It was delicious. Some biscotti and dessert wine and we are on our way.

We arrive at our favorite little Irish Pub around 10 pm and most of the friends whom I have arranged to be there are there. Among them are the group of British girls Joann has befriended at her school (a young lass named MaLou being their leader), Flavio and our Brazilian buddies and two Brits named John and Steve who are in town working on the new James Bond Film (whom I befriended a few nights before).

Aside: They are filming the opening scene of the new James Bond film here in Siena. The guys who I met are building the set and are really, really pleasant. The scene is a chase scene through the sewers, Palio and rooftops of Siena. It should be cool, so look for that.

Steve the painter of the set upon learning of the reason for the celebration immediately starts buying bottles of champagne at the bar…2 at a time I think e got through 6 or 7 with our little group as the night progressed. They asked me if I would like to work on the set, which was a very encouraging thing to hear. I told them I was more than qualified to paint any set, carry any props, rub down any Bond Girls, be Daniel Craig’s butt double, or, if need be, be presented as 008 to the masses. Oddly, no one from the studio has called me yet, but I am holding out hope.

At midnight we brought out dessert number 5. A cake I had gotten made up the day before at a local bakery. Joann was happy and surprised, but quickly whispered that she would not be having ANY MORE cake for the remainder of the night. We passed pieces around the bar and soon the pastry was all but gone. As closing time approached we decide to head to another nightclub for some drinks…well, A drink. We enter the actually pretty nice club and I head to the bar to get Joann and I a drink. 1 glass of Prosecco and a Bourbon and Ginger…20 Euro (roughly 32 dollars)…umm, no. I offer my credit card, but they do not accept them. So I smile, take the drinks and walk away. My problem was not the price of the drinks (Ahem, Hudson and SkyBar), but the fact that they expected me to have this cash on me and not take my card was insulting. I graciously took my now free drinks and exited the club. The high heels have made their presence known and we head home for the night.

I am up early to enact plan B. I rent a scooter for a day trip out to Chianti through the Tuscan vineyards. The weather has turned and it is freezing and rainy, but we are determined. We have a huge breakfast at home and then hit the road. We are heading for a tiny little town in Chianti called Castelnuovo (New Castle), which is about 20 miles outside of Siena. A friend of ours, Giuseppe, has a restaurant there and he is expecting us for dinner. Giuseppe (or Peppe) gives us the vaguest possible directions. Only telling which road gets you in the vicinity and which exit has the name of his town on it. We make our best effort but are quickly lost. This is not a bad thing as it turns out. I believe that Peppe should have followed his really bad directions with, “oh and I want you to get lost because this is God’s country and you will see the most beautiful, breathtaking things you have seen in a while…and its wicked romantic, so don’t be an idiot and get lost with your girlfriend in the rolling hills of Tuscany, idiot”. This would have at least set me up for the beauty we were about to experience. Let us not forget that I am a man. And when I get lost all I want to do is find my way the fastest possible way and will never ask directions on how to do that. Somewhere on the road I let all of that go. It literally floated away with the wind behind our speeding scooter. And as the sun peeked out and a shadow of me and Joann riding through this postcard appeared on the road, something beautiful washed over me. I had this moment that I can only aptly describe as my “it is ridiculous that this is my life” moment. Everything was beautiful and perfect. A smile I haven’t produced in a while suddenly took away my sagging cheeks and all was just right.

We rolled through this countryside for about an hour before we found Castelnuovo. We check in with Peppe at the restaurant have some quick lunch and then check into our little bed and breakfast. As far as birthdays go, this one should have been in a romance novel. We decide to head back out on the scooter and just drive around to soak up some of the scenery. We drive for miles and miles, stopping here and there. We find and even smaller town about 10 miles away from Castelnuovo and stop to peek around. We happen upon a little shop that houses one mousy old man and some gigantic wine vats. Thus enters the second memorable character of the weekend. He opens the door for us and invites us into his house, not his store, his house. He makes wine, dessert wine, grappa and olive oil. He is the official supplier of wine to the American ambassador in Italy. This man takes us hand in hand and shows us around. His vats of impeccable chianti classico, his pungent olive oil, his private stash of vintages (’83,’81’, and ’71…I tried to buy an ‘81thinking it would be a great birthday gift, but he would not sell). He chats up Joann for an hour as we try different wines, (some of which we purchase) and then he shows us around this little town. This is pretty much the gist of his tour:

Cute old man: “There is a restaurant. I own that. There are a few buildings. I own them. Those building over there…I own them. There is a nice little café. I own that. Can I buy you some coffee?”.

Its pretty much how I imagine tours of New York City to be when I give them to my friends in about 25 years. Hey, a man can dream can’t he? We hop on our scooter and get all the way to Brolio before turning back as the sun was going down. The ride back is quick and frozen. We enjoy a very nice a quiet dinner at Peppe’s restaurant (we are literally the only customers on this night) and settle into our B&B for a cozy sleep.

A quick but once again cold ride back to Siena on Monday morning. We drop off our scooter and decide to head to the Sienese equivalent of city hall to see if I can maybe swing a work permit to work on the movie set…no such luck. I give a shout to Steve the painter to pass on the news (he is legitimately bummed, which is kind of flattering) but insists that Joann and I come by the set for a minute. We are in the neighborhood (nothing is very far in Siena) so we swing by. Steve whisks us away and soon we are decked out in our finest neon vests and hard hats. We get a really cool tour of the set! He shows us the story boards for the movie and then takes us inside one of the fake buildings all the way up to the roof where the action for the scene will take place (once again, keep an eye out for the opening scene where James will have to jump from roof to roof in Siena…we were on the roofs!). When we get to the top of the set the view is amazing and one of Siena we have not yet seen. Joann, Steve and I chat about the movie business and how cool of an experience this is for us before we climb back down, it is lunchtime after all and since we have befriended some good guys from Great Britain that means its beer drinking time. Honestly these guys drink until they are red in the face in the middle of the day,.,I decide then and there that I have to go to Britain. So we head to the pub and bullshit about anything and everything. As we are about to leave Joann gracefully gives me a look that says it all, “what a great end to a great weekend”.

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