Cortona

Teresa’s birthday was yesterday, Saturday October 7th, so we all decided that it would be fun to celebrate with her. It was her 21st so naturally something had to happen, according to American college rules everywhere.

On Friday, our normal group of scallywags (Haley, Melissa, Christina, Brandi, Amber, and me) were planning to walk down to the co-op to get some party supplies for a surprise thing at midnight for her. Everything went great until we ran into Teresa right before leaving. We tried to leave her behind, which is kinda mean, but she eventually ended up coming with us all the way to the co-op. Apparently Amber has been there before, but judging from our very scenic route, I’ve come to question that. Once we got there, I was charged with the task of keeping Teresa out of the way. So I got her to walk down an aisle with me and “suddenly remembered that I need something on this aisle” and searched rapidly for something I might possibly need. Trouble was it was the hair dye and diaper aisle, so pretty much everything was girly or covered in cartoon elephants. Stalling for as long as possible, I saw some bars of soap and pretended to look for exactly the right kind. Teresa helped out and I found a bar of soap that I completely don’t need, but I bought enough time for everyone else. And she didn’t notice a thing.

That night we somehow got Teresa out of her room and set up in there, with balloons and cake and a banner that could have said “Happy Birthday” or possibly “Happy New Year”. She finally came in and we “sang” happy birthday to her in our sick and cloggy voices, scaring the poor girl half to death. We sat around and talked and laughed and finally went to bed at around 2.

The next day we all met up to get tickets for the bus ride to Cortona, Teresa’s town of choice for the big day. Cortona is a very beautiful little town on the top of a rather large mountain, and is the place where they filmed Under The Tuscan Sun, starting Diane Lane and some other people. I’ve never seen it.

Anywho, we got tickets and got on the bus with our “bus buddies” because we had to share a ticket each. It worked pretty well actually. We got there in about 30 minutes and headed off to find the restaurant of our reservation, Fufluns, which means “Expensive food restaurant in Cortona” in Italian. I think. Our final group consisted of Haley, Melissa, Christina, Brandi, Teresa, Amber, Mark, Matt, Brandon, (big) John, and me, so we had quite a crowd. The food was good, as was the wine, and we were all quite content after the meal. We all stepped outside into the sprinkling rain, set upon shopping for things we probably don’t need. Our group somehow split into two, as it usually does, and that was the first part of what went wrong for my little group.

Somehow we split, leaving Mark, Amber, Christina, Teresa, Matt, and me together, and the rest of them went somewhere else. The rain started to come down after a while, and the wind picked up, making it really quite cold. I was wearing jeans and a long-sleeve shirt and I was feeling a bit chilly, but the girls were wearing skirts and not much else, so they were really starting to shiver. So we stayed in as many shops as we could and then finally headed back to the bus stop, where I assumed everyone else would meet us. Matt claimed in his infinite knowledge that he knew when the bus was going to get there, but as usual, he was wrong, and when asked about said wrongness met we were with silence. However, we didn’t know he was wrong until after the bus failed to show, so we had to stand out in the cold windy rain for about 45 minutes, waiting for a none existent bus. The girls, Mark, and me huddled around a big tree, somewhat sheltered from the rain. The girls were absolutely freezing, so we shoved them in the middle and tried our best to keep them warm. 6 rolled around, and I told Matt that he could wait here if he wanted to, but I was taking the girls back into town to a coffee shop to get them warm. I figured out the bus schedule, while Matt complained about everything and anything, from “it’s not that cold” to “we better not miss dinner”. Amber was about to strangle him, so I shunted everyone down the road to the nearest coffee shop and plopped some hot chocolate in front of them, which was answered by big grins.

I left them in the coffee shop with Mark, who I know would look after the girls, and Matt, who was more interested in dinner or something, and I headed out into the rain to try and find the rest of our group, because they knew that we were supposed to meet up at the bus stop. I walked up and down the main corso about 10 times looking for any of them, but eventually gave in when my left ear fell off from the frostbite. Hopefully Brandon figured out the schedule too, and we would just meet them at 7 for the next bus. I went back to the coffee shop and warmed up in the glow of hot chocolate and the warmth of friends.

7 rolled around and we all made our way back to the bus stop, where we found the others boarding the bus. Apparently they had been sitting on the second floor of some fancy coffee shop for the past 3 hours, warmer than bugs in a rug. I sat next to a chilly Amber and spent the next 30 minutes in and out of sleep.

Dinner was a fancy occasion, mainly because it was Teresa’s birthday and we got ice cream sandwiches for dessert. Mmmmmm…

After dinner, we all turned in for a while, recovering from the day. After a much needed rest, all of us went out to the slamma-jamma new pub in town, The Velvet Underground. It is really pretty cool over there. There are tons of people that go, and its fun to just sit around and talk with everyone while having a drink to relax. Last night was pretty fun. And that was Teresa’s birthday.

These things sure are a lot easier to write when you write them before you forget all the silly little details. Like Haley pouring water at dinner, or Amber nearly punching Matt. Good stuff. Remember way back when I said that I knew things would be better?

Well, they are.