Recollections of Eurotrash Days (Part Deux)

After yesterday's post which included the photo of Kelley and me at the disco near Como, Italy, I remembered that I had all of my European adventures logged in an electronic journal -- so I decided to re-read them this evening after many years (in which I totally forgot I had stored them) and thought I would include the one I wrote about that night out. Maybe because it jogged some recessed funny memories, I found myself chuckling out loud... enjoy!

“Cinqueterre” Mon, Jul 31, 2000

Ciao di Cinqueterre:

We decided to have dinner at our albergo in Menaggio, and Kelley had bought some chianti for us to drink in the room. So after getting a bit sauced on the red wine, and having a lovely pasta dinner, we decided to head to a disco around 10 pm. Earlier in the day, i had gotten my hair trimmed and asked the lady who cut my hair where a good night spot was. She told me to go to the 'Latin American' disco in the next town, about a one mile walk which she said was very dangerous at night because it was so dark on the winding road.

So Kelley and I decided to try to get a taxi in the main town piazza. We stood at a taxi stand for about 10 mins before realizing that no taxis serviced this town (Menaggio is very tiny). So we went to a nearby bar to ask them how we should get to the disco. Luckily the owner took a fancy to Kelley and arranged for his 16 year old son and his young friend to drive us in the family station wagon to the discoteca. I laughed the entire ride there!!! These two teenagers were like something out of the movie 'Clerks' except they spoke no English.

So we got to the disco, and the two boys dropped us off and peeled out to return back to Menaggio. (how we were getting home from the disco was still a mystery to us, esp since the place was more like 4 miles away as opposed to 1 mile away). We went in the disco, and it was almost empty except for a Dudley Moore twin lounging around the bar with an ugly friend. There were a couple skampy Italian girls grinding on the dance floor, but that was it.

Feeling rather disappointed, we ordered drinks to keep ourselves entertained. We each ordered margaritas and experienced an immediate shock of straight, cheap tequila with almost no mix added! Eek, what terrible drinks. The dance floor was filling up a bit, and at this point, a totally cheesy male dance instructor (sort of the Patrick Swayze dirty dancing type) came out on the dance floor to lead people in line dancing to Santana (Santana??). We joined in before becoming frustrated with the complicated steps, and then retired to the bar to people watch for a while until another good song came on the dance floor. There were lots of skinny girls in teeny outfits and Rico Suave type men.

So we entered back to the dance floor eventually, and we were approached by two young men from Milan (can't remember their names!) They latched onto us for the night, mainly b/c one of the boys was very interested in Kelley. We dubbed them "Pita hands" and "Fat Lip". Pita Hands was a very overweight fellow around the age of 30. He is a chef at a nightclub in Milan and from the looks of him, he eats more than his fair share of pastries. He was really into Kelley, and continuously massaged her hands with his hands (which according to Kelley felt remarkably similar to pita bread, what with their light dusting of flour were quite similar to his dry chafed skin). Horrified, she noted later in the evening that the glitter which she wore on her cheeks somehow also ended up on his face. I noted Pita Hands had a bit of an odor problem, but then again, he was sweating profusely on the dance floor. Pita Hands' friend was Fat Lip, who was unfortunately left to me by a matter of elimination. Fat Lip was not too interested in me and vice versa, so it wasn't too much of a problem. He was cooler than Pita Hands (in my opinion) and kept his hands to himself.

As we were unable to shake these characters (the disco was not too big), we ended up dancing with them till the end of the evening. I was well aware they were our only ride home as well, so I didn't want to create too much distance being that we still needed to get home. Luckily my strategy worked, and Pita Hands and Fat Lip gave us a lift back to Menaggio, and we parted ways with nothing more than a small hug between us all.

The next day Kel and I slept in and then decided to head to Lido Giardini, a pool complex in town. The humor was that we had to purchase swim caps in order to enter the pool (they must have had some serious hair clogging trouble in the past). So in fits of laughter, we purchased our little red and blue swim caps and went to the pool.


Ethel Merman and Swim Companion.

We are now staying in Riomaggiore, and we have had many adventures here as well. We are staying in a small villa at the top of the town with views of vineyards and the sea, and you can hear the water crash against the rocks in the night... ahhhh. There is one bar here in town which we wandered to on our first night, Saturday. We encountered two awful men in the Italian Marines here, named Fabio and Felice, who were the two most desperate men I have ever met in my life.

We saw them again last night walking down the street, and we were so eager to avoid them that we ran as fast as we could to a phone booth and crawled into the fetal position at the bottom of the booth so they wouldn't see us! They tried to invite us to dinner but we said no because Fabio has some major halitosis and Felice could do with a good teeth brushing.

OK, we are off to the beach now in Monterosso. We spent yesterday hiking to Manarolo and Corniglia along the coast and laid out all day in the sun in a rocky cove on the water and watching an animated Italian family with a hilarious dog named Camilla who was wearing a mini baseball hat.

Now I must go... Time to say ciao...
Bye bye and arrivaderci...