ITALIAN WEDDINGS. Most people my age in Italy don’t get married. Sam has explained that it’s a way to give the middle finger to the Catholic church. I remember always receiving weird looks when I happened to mention my “husband” in conversations with locals. Italians often thought I was too young to be married. In America, I would have been considered a “late bloomer”. When I first arrived in Tuscany, one of Sam’s bandmates decided to get married. He was the youngest in the band, and everyone was shocked at what seemed like an impulsive decision. The night before his wedding we were all having beers in the town square, I noticed it was getting pretty late and the wedding was at 9:00 am sharp, in a church an hour away. I kept telling our friend group that we should probably call it a night so we could be up in time the next day. The next morning we all divvied up who would ride in which vehicle and caravaned to the Tuscan town of Chiusi Chianciano. I was about to lose my mind because we were over an hour late, my American mind couldn’t relax because I am used to always being on time or a bit early. The Italians were not even phased by how late we were, I was the only one making a fuss. We arrived and the service was in full swing, it lasted another hour and a half. Once the service was over, we paraded outside and watched the newlyweds have their photos taken and we threw rice at them and each other. Once again we all piled back in cars and made it to the venue for the reception. It was a gorgeous villa with a swimming pool and several tables everywhere filled with food, when I say filled I mean that you couldn’t even make out the table cloth and it was overflowing with food, an excessive amount. Entire legs of prosciutto being sliced by a waiter on every corner. Fountains of prosecco. We began to cram food by the fist full as if it were a food-eating contest. We obviously washed it down with the bubbles. The newlyweds arrived and the toasts began. Then we were all corralled to the inside of the villa. I was confused, I thought we had already had our meal. We walked into the villa with various rows of tables in three separate rooms. Each place had 3 different glasses and several layers of dishes. Rolled up in the middle of the bowl in front of us was what appeared to be a menu. I read it, leaned over to Sam, and said, “I guess I’ll have the duck”. He laughed and said, “No no, it’s not a menu, this is just informing us what all we will be consuming, we are getting ALL OF IT”. I was letting this information sink in when I noticed a server speed-walking in front of our table holding a slab of wood with an entire pig on fire! The room started cheering and clinking prosecco flutes. We were at the table for over seven hours!!! Just eating and drinking, anytime your glass would resemble even the slightest empty a waiter would materialize and fill your glass. I was so full that I could not even have any of the wedding cake. I was totally mesmerized that our table had room for cake and ate every last bite from their plates. I still don’t know how they did it. There was another girl at our table who was not Tuscan, she was from South Italy. I sensed that she knew I felt out of my element, the longest I had been at the table at this point was 4 hours, this was really a new record for me and I didn’t have the language completely down. If I couldn’t express myself I would just give up and listen to someone else talk, but after 7 hours it felt more like people screaming. When we finally rose from the tables the sun was beginning to set. I felt like I was going to pass out due to all of the alcohol and food being consumed. I was offered a cigarette, I am not a smoker, but my friends kept insisting it would help. I was suffering from the worst case of a food coma, I needed to lie down and fast. When I looked around the outdoor garden I spotted a swimming pool and my drunken logic beamed through as the only answer to my current problem. I jumped in, fully dressed in an expensive mustard yellow dress I brought over from the States. The shock value was priceless. A half a second later the Southern Italian girl jumped in with me. We pulled ourselves out of the pool and dragged ourselves to the pool lounge chairs, I passed out. 

Women in Italy are not afraid to eat. I’m still learning how to pace myself. I used to put hot sauce on every single pasta dish. Sam would be offended and countless times tried to explain to me the subtleness of the flavors. Today the only thing I put hot sauce on is pasta with pesto,(sometimes on pasta al pomodoro if its more than once in the same week) I could go the rest of my life never eating it again, but it’s a dish that is always in everyone’s back pocket that no one argues with. I like pesto if I make it at home. I use fresh basil, olive oil we harvest ourselves, pine nuts, garlic, and I like to add a little bit of spinach. I gag at the thought of pesto from the grocery store in a jar. Or if you were in America in a Southern state you would call it “store-bought pesto”, hard pass for me. 

BIRTHDAY PARTIES. Dinner parties in general can be an all night affair, but birthday parties are notorious for being a long event. 10 years ago when I first moved here it was a little different, the person who’s birthday it was would invite all of their friends out to eat at a restaurant and pay for the entire tab. They would also insist on everyone getting whatever they want. I almost prefer the dinner parties 10 years ago before smart phones and social media were all the rage. Just last year I went to a birthday party of a long time friend from Arezzo. She picked a swanky place, and each person paid a total amount, it might have been €50/60 per person. Everyone had the same menu. The antipasto came out with bottles of prosecco. The primo came out and it was a subtle pasta dish with flavors of the season accompanied by red wine. Then the secondo came out with the contorno. Followed by more wine and then a big cake. When we first arrived we all were a bit timid and introduced ourselves and how we knew our birthday girl. But once the drinks started flowing everyone relaxed a little and started having a good time. At a certain point every single person was on their phones watching videos and showing each other videos or playing music from their phones. It is a strange thing to watch in a decade how the table culture is deteriorating and centered around a smart phone, photos and live video. We arrived at the restaurant at 8:30pm and left at 1:45 am, then the group was insisting on going out to a bar afterwards and to go dancing. I walked them to their next destination and told them I was calling it a night. I got home after 2 am. I guess it makes sense for Italians to go dancing after a birthday dinner party because you are sitting at the table for hours and the food has to digest somehow right?! These creatures are on to something. 10 years ago it was also very rare to see an obese person, normally it would just be an American tourist. Slowly but surely all of the garbage food from America is starting to make its debut here. Sugary cereals, peanut butter, sugary sodas, candy bars, and fast food joints. The younger generation is a little on the hefty side, but nothing compared to the United States.

FASHION. Before Sam and I became parents, a typical Sunday pastime would be to sit in a nice piazza and have some cappuccinos and pastries. We would people watch and I loved playing the game where we would make up lives about people walking by us. One Sunday I looked up from my sunglasses and in English said, “ At your 12:00, that homegirl is doing a walk of shame” Sam glanced at the subject and responded with “Yeah definitely not, she is on her way to church!”. After further inspection and paying attention to details, he was right! This woman was wearing an evening dress in the morning! Where I come from they have rules about wearing certain outfits after the sun sets or white after Labor Day. Not in Italy, there is no such thing as being overdressed ever. When I first moved here, I made the mistake and wore my yoga clothes with sneakers to the grocery store. By the looks I received from nearly everyone in the store, it was as if I had broken several laws. I left that day feeling very self-conscious. Nowadays, I see the younger generations wearing tracksuits or some workout clothes, it’s not as shocking as it was back then. But I have been forever changed, it was several years before I wore slob-resembling clothing out in public, especially grocery shopping. I rarely underdress if I’m leaving my house, because the chance I look homeless, will guarantee I will run into EVERYONE and their dog.

One of my local girlfriends complained to me recently about their feet hurting from running around Arezzo, especially with the cobblestones in the historical center. I just advised them to get a good sturdy sneaker. She responded with “Are you crazy?! I don’t want to look like an idiot!”.

I briefly taught yoga at an upscale gym, not a single member wore their workout clothes to the gym, they were always dressed up and brought clothing to change into and then showered and wore their dress clothes back out when they left. When I go out to a dinner party and wear heels I will hold out as long as possible, my trick is I always pack a pair of flats in my clutch, it’s normally what I walk home in.

A few months ago for “Ash Wednesday” the kids were out of school and I had set up a playdate with some schoolmates from my children’s school. We decided to walk off our long lunch by our cathedral and playground. We took a stroll by the little snack stands, I glanced up to see the line to get into the cathedral, it wrapped around the block. I felt like I was at Paris Fashion Week. A grandmother walked past us to get in line with her grandsons and wore the most extravagant suit I have ever seen with white feathers around her neck and covering her chest, shoulders, and back. She belonged on a red carpet. I was also trying to snap a photo without looking like I doing precisely that. I could easily write a continuous series about fashion here in Arezzo. Natives to Arezzo are called “Aretini”. The Aretini love their fashion as much as their food.