My First Meal!

I may have just posted literally 15 seconds ago, but I had my first meal in Italy this evening and I thought that it deserved its own post. Since it was already dinner time when I arrived at my hotel, I didn't explore Firenze much tonight - I just walked a few blocks into a neighborhood next to the hotel until I found a little restaurant full of people who were blatantly not American. I gathered my courage for about ten minutes, and then walked in. When the server looked up at me, I instantly forgot all the Italian that I've learned since January 2010. Somehow, I sputtered "Uno!" One? Really? What did I even think I was saying?...

He eventually figured out that I wanted to eat dinner and that I didn't want a coffee to go, and so he gave me a seat in the corner, from which I creepily watched everyone eat delicious things. When the waiter asked what I wanted (same guy as before) I managed a similarly fluent combination of sounds, and then pointed at a random part of the menu and read it out loud. This flawless method yielded me the most delicious pizza ever ever ever (seen below) with prosciutto and mushrooms.

I gather that pizza is not served sliced in Italy (at least this one wasn't sliced), so I creepily spied on my neighbors, saw them gracefully eating the pizza, and then managed some combination of cutting and picking up and slurping and being very very happy. I wasn't actually very hungry when I walked in the restaurant, but of course I ate the whole thing. And when he asked if I'd like dessert, my brain said "No thanks, I'm very full." My mouth, however, said "Tiramisu, per favore," which was brilliant decision number 2.

 

<3, Giovanni