Firenze Gelato Festival

There has been an insane heat wave lately in Florence, and according to Florentines this isn't anything yet. Well, if 32 degrees and humid is what they have in late-May, I'm glad I'm not sticking around much longer. If not for the heat, then for the mosquitoes. Each day I wake up and I have at least three new bites. My arms, hands, and legs are like a battleground for my blood. And I am the only loser.

Speaking of the heat, did you know that Florence is one of the two hottest cities in Italy? Bolzano in northern Italy is the other. This is due to the fact that these cities are situated in a conca or basin. Heat gets trapped here and wind is a rarity. It makes me appreciate the mild climate of Vancouver.

The perfect way to combat the heat is a nice gelato, and what better day for the Firenze Gelato Festival to start than today, at the peak of the heat wave? My Swiss friend Meli, who had left Florence a month ago, came back with her mom for a couple of days, so she took a bit of time off being a tour guide and joined me, G, and another guy friend (let's call him V) for some gelato-sampling at Piazza Pitti (site of the now infamous yoga lesson).

The festival's sampling system is quite modern for Italian standards. For 7€ you receive a plastic card that entitles you to 5 samples, and these cards can be reloaded with more money should 5 samples prove insufficient. You choose your flavour and someone with a handheld machine swipes your card and prints you a personalized receipt with the name of their gelateria and how many samples you have left. I would have expected some kind of punch-card!

The piazza was lined with stall upon stall of representatives and samples from artisanal gelaterie around Florence, none of which I had heard of before. Each gelateria had eight or more flavours to choose from--multiply this by over 20 and that makes more than 160 flavours! Mind you, the basics like strawberry, chocolate, etc. were in almost every stall. There was even a special gelato for dogs called "IceBau" (bau is the sound that Italian dogs make, not "woof").

Choosing the flavours proved to be very difficult. I ended up having 3 back-to-back:

1. Ricotta e pistachio - yummy!
2. Babà al rum - also yummy but a bit too strong
3. Caffè crunk - neutral

Each sample was a small cup of gelato and depending on how generous your server was, it could be a full cup or 3/4 full. I was keeping track of G's samples but Meli and V were not, so when he had finished his third one (he went on to have one more), they were shocked to hear that he hadn't just had his first!

Not knowing what to do after our gelato-adventure, V suggested going to a brewery in the San Lorenzo area. It was happy hour which meant that he and G could have a pint of beer for 3,50€--whereas my medium pepsi was 4,50€! Meli had an Aperol Spritz and pretty soon she had to leave for an aperitivo with her mom so I hung out with the guys as they had a second beer and G started to teach V some German. V was more interested in learning how to say "ninety-nine red balloons" rather than the different genders and basic phrases.

We headed to our respective homes/dinner appointments and then met up again at Lochness for cocktails  around 10:00pm. Unfortunately my bartender Francesco was not there, but the guy who was there still managed to make something I liked and gave us a discount. V came a bit late (and tipsy), fresh from having a bottle of red wine to himself at his friend's dinner. He was insistent that Meli take the last bus back to Fiesole (around 12:30am) instead of the second last one. He led us to Shotz Cafe (site of where I have witnessed drunkenness before) for some pre-departure long island iced tea. The four of us shared two pitchers in less than 20 minutes. For the first time in my life I felt like I had lost a bit of control of my motor functions. But I was still fully aware of what was going on and able to wake up for school the next day (though I'll admit, I was slower than usual).

Today's word of the day is brillo, meaning "tipsy". Wine makes me sleepy, white sangria from Mis Trucos makes me happy, hyper, and uncharacteristically extraverted, and I now know that long island iced tea is a fast road to drunkenness--a road I would rather not take, though I have heard from a few people that they would like to see me there.