Career Goal: Gelato Photo Shoot Assistant

            I have to confess that this blog is being written under many sins.  First, I’m outside at a café drinking a cappuccino despite it being above 95 degrees and sweating enough to bathe a small elephant.  Second, I’m drinking said cappuccino after the acceptable cappuccino window (5 am – 11 am more or less).  Third, I am drinking this cappuccino 5 minutes after slamming two pezzis of margherita at Mamma and Pappa’s.  As they say in Ascoli, TE VO ARREGNA? (Yo, you wanna fight me?)

Sometimes things happen and all you can think to yourself is, “Only in Ascoli”.   I have two cases for your consideration today, on opposite ends of the “I Am Okay With This Happening” scale.  Let’s start out on a positive note.  I was sitting on the side of the church in Piazza del Popolo, enjoying some good people watching and overall chilling.  A man approaches me with a cup of gelato and asks (in Italian) if I would like it.  Now, America conditioned me to not take candy from strangers.  But Italy has conditioned me to know that gelato is not candy, it’s liveliness and should never be denied nor shall calorie content be looked up.  So I took it, but made him take a bite first.  As I sit, enjoying my free gelato, that group of Italians calls me over to the front of a restaurant.  I venture over to discover that they are doing a GELATO PHOTOSHOOT.  They had a little light box and took pictures of the beautiful gelato, presumably for a menu of some sort.  You know why I had been brought over there?  To eat the gelato after it’s modeling moment was done.  I was an Official Gelato Eater.  This was a DREAM COME TRUE.  I was triple fisting gelato while laughing and talking to some extremely nice Italians.  Birds were singing, children were laughing, I’m pretty sure Hall and Oates’ “You Make My Dreams” was playing in the background.

            But despite Ascoli being quite magical in every way, some things make you confused as to how you can be on the same planet as the rest of modern society.  Things like seeing a man eating dinner with a cage on his table.  A cage in which there is a FERRET.  A ferret watching him eat some carbonara.  That was a truly puzzling moment.

            Other than gelato photo shoots and dining ferrets, things have been pretty normal and nice.  Stroll around, drink cappuccinos, do homework in the piazza, eat a lot of tomatoes.  There are some new, fun aspects to my life in Ascoli, though.  My first day of my internship went really well!  Stefano and the other people that work there are very cool and know a lot about the coolest things in Ascoli.  What is better than combining my love of travel, theatre, Italian, and air-conditioned spaces!?  Quintana, the medieval celebration of Ascoli, is really fun.  It’s pretty much Ascoli’s March Madness but with less Charles Barkley and more flag throwing.  Everyone has a guild based on where in Ascoli they live.  I’m part of Sant Emedio! I have yet to see someone flip over a car but I may get carried enough away to do it myself.  Life here is grand despite having bug bites in horrible places and sweat covering my entire body.  It’s like a warm, wet hug from Ascoli welcoming me back. Right? Right.

            There are a lot of exciting things coming up for your girl!  This weekend I’m going to Rome for one night with the entire group and then I’m going to Milan!  I’ve never been to Milan and I’m really looking forward to seeing all the sites, going to Expo, and going shopping.  Okay, my shopping may be for a Nutella cornetto to eat while wistfully staring at the Miu Miu and Mossimo windows…  The next weekend Ascoli is putting on a production of THE LION KING in the main piazza!!  Are they going to do it all in Italian?  Sing in English speak in Italian? Not speak at all and only sing?  I don’t even know but I do know that I am getting there at 1 PM for a good seat, so hopefully someone can deliver me some water, Diet Coke, and mozz balls. 

    I’ll update you all after or during the Milan adventure! Ciao!!