After our wonderful sunny day in the Tuscan Countryside tasting wine, olive oil and a traditional Italian home-cooked meal everyone was kind of beat.  The next day Angela and Devo had a full day of getting married and I think most of us just wanted to relax and be available to help prepare for the wedding in any way we could.  For myself and Devo this meant getting soup for Angela and Amy.

Angela, Amy, Devo and I are lounging around at our bed & breakfast and we’re getting kind of hungry (I’m not sure how, since we’d eaten a huge meal earlier) and Angela mentions that she’d like some soup.  Not just any soup, but Matzah Ball Soup.  Sure, that should be easy to find in Florence.  If we can’t find that she’ll take a soup that is not tomato based.  At first this task didn’t seem so difficult, just go find a restaurant and tell them in our broken Italian that we’d like 4 soups to go.  Devo and I first hit up the restaurant directly across the alley from the B&B and check the menu.  No matzah ball soup.  Luckily for us there are restaurants everywhere and most of them have a menu posted outside their doors.

We’re passing restaurant after restaurant and most of them offer one soup, but not all of them.  And it’s usually Minestrone.   Then Devo remembers that he and Angela and a few friends had gone to a restaurant and become friends (kinda) with one of the waiters.  It’s right across the street, so we walk over there and we’re looking like tourists at the menu.  We don’t see soup.  But then a waitress walks out and recognized Devo from the other night and asks if we need help (in broken English of course).  Devo explains that we want ‘zuppa’ to go.  She replies that they don’t really carry soup, but will make some for us.  Awesome!  Score, now what do we want in it?  “Pollo” and “Noodle” Devo says.  “Noodle?” responds the waitress.  Yes, we feel like idiots.  “Ummmm, pasta!” Devo says quickly trying to correct the obvious out-of-towner blunder we’ve just made.  She asks us to come inside where Devo recognizes the waiter from the last time they were there and they start joking around and then he tells us that Yes they can make us soup to go, but they don’t have a to-go container so we’d need to bring them one.

oh, ok.  There’s not really a KMart on the corner to buy tupperware, and the host of the B&B has gone to bed and there’s a note in her kitchen that says to stay out of the drawers.  Devo and I rush back to the B&B after like 20-30 minutes of searching for soup and excitedly tell the girls that we found a restaurant to custom make us some soup, but that we don’t know what the heck we’ll bring it back in.  Some of our ideas were, a plastic trash bag, empty water bottles, just steal/borrow a few bowls from the B&B.  We leave the B&B empty-handed and I have an idea.   We can’t buy a bowl or tupperware anywhere because it’s too late, but maybe if we buy 4 large gelato bowls we can get those filled up.  We head to a Gelato shop and buy 4 empty bowls.  yes, the people think we’re crazy.  But the largest of the sizes is still tiny, remember, this isn’t America where a large ice cream is 72 oz.  We’re heading to the restaurant and I start realizing that this is a stupid idea.  I hand the gelato cups to Devo and I say something like “I’m going with you but you’re handing them these cups”  We walk into the restaurant and the waiter looks at us expectantly with a grin.  It turns into an even bigger grin and a huge laugh when Devo pulls the four gelato cups out from behind his back.  Now everyone in the restaurant is cracking up at the two Americans.  The waiter is pointing to Devo and miming blowing his brains out just laughing at how moronic these cups are.  It was awkward and also hilarious.  The guys finally bring some rinsed out (barely) old tupperware from the back and proceed to make our soup, but we have now assured them we will bring their tupperware back the next day (the wedding day).

Devo and I head back to the B&B, champions of zuppa, feeling a little touristy and embarrassed, but champions none the less.  We walked into the girls room, just cracking up and told them our tale.  We all joked about how when we went back the next day to return the tupperware that the staff would have brought their friends and families to point and laugh at us, or how Angela and Devo would go in their wedding attire and take pictures in front of the staff. We then proceeded to pour the soup into the gelato cups that had so embarrassed us.

The next day, I returned the tupperware in the late morning, they were barely open and no one was there ridiculing me. Afterwards I made my way to Giotto’s Tower for a solo climb up 400+ steps.  A beautiful way to start a wedding day.

I’m not gonna lie, this is one of my favorite memories ever.  Some kind of strange adventure, a simple adventure.  If Angela, or Amy or Devo thinks I left anything out, please comment.

Currently Listening to:  Fennesz – Black Sea (2008) LP

It’s worth searching out any of the varied releases on Touch Music UK

want to read more?

• Florence, Italy – Wedding Night
• Firenza, Italy – Wednesday morning, Giotto’s Tower
• Scotland: flights home
• Alaska: Skagway Gold Rush tour (part 2)
• Sunday night dinner party