So, as usual, we are drunk already.
But I have to say, being drunk in Italy on a beautiful red wine doesn’t have too much in common with sitting in a circle at my University drinking a crunched water bottle filled with vodka and whatever else I could find in my fridge. Instead, a pregame that I eat with my dinner feels nice and classy, and even better once I am giggling with Juliana and we are holding our bottles up together so that we know drank the same amount. Once I start chugging it from this bottle though and scrunching my face, I know that it isn’t very classy anymore.
Juliana, Andrea, Sean, and I wander the street for awhile to go to Louis and Billy’s apartment, which is in a nice square with some grass only about a half a mile away, maybe a little more. Juliana and I skip the street, our wine drunk seeming to skip the tired phase and instead makes me want to scream out I LOVE ITALY! although I’m pretty sure that’s the best way to get mugged.
Billy comes out to meet us and leads us into his apartment which is over a gelataria, and we hike the three floors up until we get to an apartment that isn’t as big as ours, but is stuffed with books I would love to read and consider packing inside my purse. It is filled with pretty Italian paintings and glass and generally looks like a family could live there and gaze out their window onto the square and the Santa Maria Novella church, while ours kind of looks like a big empty house that has an obscene amount of wine.
Max tells us he doesn’t want to go out because he doesn’t want to spend the money, but he gives Juliana and I another glass of wine anyway (as if we needed it) and I tell him I will make him a gourmet meal in return. Billy hands me a pair of binoculars and it’s kind of cool to stare out the window with them after all the people lounging about the square. After awhile, the bunch of us meet our old tour guide, Anthony, as well as some more girls in our group at another bar where we pay 20 euro to join a pub crawl and get three free shots and free entrance to a big club, Space.
I’m so drunk as we wander around that I don’t even feel weird arguing the principles of Catholicism with Billy, meanwhile considering that maybe I won’t be accepting all of my free shots. The problem with wandering a dark city when you’re drunk, adding to the fact that you have an awful sense of direction, is that in the daylight you can never find where you were and you feel like all the places of the night before were just a dream.
When we get to the third club, Space, we are crammed in with a million other people on the floors, reminding me of Pacha in New York. All of the girls dance with each other and watch each other’s backs, and we turn the other one away when a weird European boy tries to creep on her and take advantage of her American tourism. This is one thing I don’t have in the States: girlfriends. I hang out with all the boys when we dance, it’s more of a joke than anything else and we mostly spend our drinking time trying to get into mischief. It’s a nice change once in a while to go out with everyone else and just dance with girls and not worry about what you owe another.
Leaving Space at 2:30 am, even though the place is still packed, is a disaster. Even though we bought no drinks, we have to stand in a crowded line where a huge man screams at us all and actually makes me a little nervous as he holds us back and I yell at him that we are never coming back here. Nicole, a feisty Portuguese girl in our group, is especially mad when she is charged for her supposed free drinks. Once outside though in the Firenze air and walking home together, it’s hard to be angry.
Life Aboard the Traveling Circus 