The Best Gelato in the World

Old friends in new places. Started the day with another train ride through the lovely countryside into Firenze to meet up with a friend who is living nearby. She and I spun fire together a while ago, before she moved to Vegas for the magic, but lost it there and then followed a cute boy here. (nevermind my run-on sentences, I'm telling a story here, not writing a paper...) We met outside the McDonalds in the train station - for those of you who know her, she looks incredible. Italy has been good to her. We wandered the lovely street market that was reminiscent of the Chiang Mai night market. It was full of ties, leather goods, handbags, colorful scarves, things to wear and have and drink out of for blocks and blocks. I bought a couple of things, she haggling a little for me with the vendors- they seem less poor here, less desperate and more truly friendly. They liked my hair. At a booth selling fabulous leather coats, we ended up in the back of the shop with the man whose name was embroidered on the tag of the coats- Claudio - who, it turns out, spent 3 years in school in Helena, Montana of all places, and spoke wonderful English. We swapped wreck stories- he had a big scar on his cheek from going over the handlebars of his motorcycle, and talked about politics, dreams, ignorant Americans and language. We drank and talked for an hour or two, and I left with his email address, an expensive coat and a priceless experience. Our next adventure took us through the streets of Firenze to the Piazza del Signorine and the Duomo. Oh, the marble. I love the moment that I realized that this spectacular building (The Duomo) is not *painted* white and green, it is ridiculously ornate marble macro-mosaic. Did I say it was huge? In the corner of the piazza was a sort of open-air museum, where you walk up the steps to see 14 marble statues- the Rape of the Sabine women, Hermes holding the head of Medusa, and others. I am fascinated by the combination of realistic detail and stylized proportion in these statues. It is as if someone hit the "pause" and "zoom" buttons on a scene 400 years ago. They're almost twice as big as a person, with curly-q hair and very focused eyes (intense statue is intense.) and carved from stone in lovely detail. How does one carve this stone so perfectly, down to the anatomically correct placement of veins bulging out of cream-colored forearms, to the fingers pressed into a woman's leg... So amazing! After picking my jaw up off the floor, we continued along down toward the river and Pontevecchio- the bridge full of jewelry shops, and wound through couple of narrow cobblestone alleyways to a tiny gelato shop. I had had gelato in Venice, but my friend said that there really is a difference between good and bad gelato and that *this* was the best gelato she had found in Florence. And it was. The Snozzberries taste like Snozzberries. I had cream flavor and grapefruit flavor and this gelato isn't artificially flavored, it's Ike the very best parts of eating a fruit or whatever else whipped into a cloud and frozen. Comparing this gelato to American ice cream is like comparing the finest microbrews to Coors. Like a Maserati and a Pinto. Like a ballerina and a lumberjack. The mint flavor my friend had did not taste like a washed-up Altoid, it tasted like actual mint leaves. When was the last time you had an actual mint leaf? It really was the best Gelato in the whole world. We finished our cones and kept going, headed back toward the train station to meet her lovely Italian boyfriend for dinner. A couple of Italian guys bought us beers and tried to climb in our pockets to come home with us, but we shook them off and caught up with him quickly. We laughed and talked over a fabulous dinner of steak and rabbit and pasta and wine and bread and cheese and prosciutto and all the wonderful things you eat in Italy. It was late when we finished, and the restaurant was closing, but we kept talking and Lovely Italian Boyfriend asked the waiter for a 'digestive'- an after-dinner (aperitif?) liqueur. It tasted like Jagermeister, only instead of licorice was a pleasant rosemary flavor. Rosemary liquor! Who knew? Then the restaurant owner cruised by with some glasses and a large bottle of some orange adult beverage. He dropped the glasses on the table, and filled them while making some small talk. He raised his glass, "To life!" in a wonderful Italian accent, downed it, and knocked the empty shot glass on the table. We followed suit, but failed to smack the glasses on the table, at which he corrected us: "you don't knock, you don't fuck!" which came out as "yau don' nauck, yau don' fauck!" (Pardon my french- but I'm going for realism here...) We knocked vigorously, and laughed with him and the waitstaff. We danced to the too-loud Abba that was playing on the radio, we drank more shots of orange liquor (Arancelo, dubbed "Fucking Arancelo" by the end of the night), some lemon flavored kind, (Limoncelo), and another kind of the herb stuff, toasting to "Life!" to "This night!", to "the people in your life who come and come again (which I took to mean loyal and loving friends- of which I have many. So, so many... And was apropos, being at dinner with a friend that I have happily not lost track of over the years.) and knocked shot glasses on the table, the chairs, the walls, eachother... until we stumbled our thank-yous out the door long after midnight. Sincere and heart-felt fun. I was thankful to not have to find a train this late, and this intoxicated- Lovely Italian Boyfriend (who had far fewer shots than my friend and I) drove us back to their apartment in the next town, where we laughed and talked more until the fabled Tuscan sun chased us into bed. Love, it flows like wine.