Saturday, September 2(cont.)

Poggibonsi

As I leave the train station, bells ring jubilantly. Cool, I think, they're announcing my arrival. I follow the directions in the trip packet and experience a moment of panic when I get to where the directions end and don't see a sign reading "Hotel". A woman walking out of a door tells me "you're at the right place." I'm not positive, but I think that was Dara that rescued me from my confusion.

I walk in and see an ancient woman behind the desk. I use my favorite Italian phrase on her, "parla Inglese?" and have another moment of panic when she confidently replies, "no."

She pulls out a sheet of paper and shows it to me. I point to my name on the sheet, and she hands me a key on a ring with a large piece of wood stamped with the number "16".

I wrestle my bags up 2 flights of stairs, thinking again that I must pack lighter on my next trip. Once I get to my room, I look out the window and see a young couple kissing in the alley. I chuckle as I unpack just enough to take a shower and change. I'm a little confused when I see what look like undersized table cloths hanging on the towel racks, but they turn out to be surprisingly absorbent.

As I step out of the shower stall, the church bells (right outside of my window and no longer so cool) ring again. I think that the locals must be happy that the foreigner is no longer stinky. After I dress in clean (if a bit rumpled) clothes, I look out the window and see that the couple are still at it.

About now, my roommate Paul walks in and introduces himself. He's from San Francisco and seems to be much more experienced at this stuff. I look at his miniscule luggage with much envy.

We decide to have dinner together and head out to check out the recommended restaurants. We end up at Da Angelo, which the trip packet describes as "casual, very local place... specializes in pizza and seafood."

For antipasti, we order bruschetta polpo, which turns out to be thinly sliced octopus cooked lightly (amazingly tender) and seeped in olive oil and seasoning. As I hold the meat on my tongue to savor the taste, it seems to melt away on its own. After we polish off our appetizer, we order pizza, which takes me by surprise by how different it is from what I'm used to. The crust is thin and crispy, almost like a cracker. There isn't very much cheese on top.

I look around and see some very interesting dishes being consumed by the locals. At one adjacent table a woman has a pizza with a ring of mussels (still in their shells) surrounding a crawfish in the center. Later, I see a family (father, mother, and teenage son) sharing a chocolate pizza for dessert.

After we finish our main course, the waitress brings little glasses the size of shot glasses on stems and a bottle. She sets the glasses in front of us, presents the bottle proudly and announces, "grappa". She fills our glasses and we drink.

I find it to be amazing and refreshing. It tastes to me a bit like very fine tequila. Paul and I ask for another before heading back to the hotel.

I discover that the church bells ring on the hour and on the half hour but still manage to get a good 4 hours of sleep.

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