The Bruschetta Fraud, Valentino's Dad, and Strange Toilets

We ended up going out to dinner tonight with Valentino and his parents in the town where he goes to school. We drove there in his dad’s Mercedes. His dad always goes really fast in that car and it’s a lot of fun. In Italy, you also get points deducted you’re your license for traffic violations, only here you start with 20 points. Valentino said his mom only has 4 points left so she hardly drives now, but his dad has all 20 points even though he always speeds through red lights, makes U-turns, and drives too fast. The town we went to for dinner had a lot of stores in it, just like the ones in Milan. His parents had some errands to run, so they told us to go to the restaurant and get a table. The people at the restaurant told Valentino he needed a reservation, so we went back outside to call his dad. In Italy, it’s rude to be on the phone inside of places. Valentino always steps outside to take calls or he walks away from where we are. So his dad came to meet us, and Valentino explained the situation. Even though his dad is short, he’s really tough. He said “no, no” and winked at Tiffany and I and then went into the restaurant to yell at the workers. In about 2 minutes, he came out and said “viente minutos,” which means 20 minutes, and then we went to a café to wait. Tiffany and I just had to laugh at that. Valentino says that his dad is the boss of Italy because he always tells other people what to do. The café we went to was really cute, and we got bruschetta and cute little fruity drinks. So all this time, America has misled us when it comes to bruschetta. Bruschetta doesn’t always have to be hard bread with tomatoes and onions and olive oil and cheese. Bruschetta just means “little bread” and can have almost anything on it. We got about 6 different types of bruschetta at the café. One had salami with another vegetable on it, one had shrimp and a sauce on it, another had ham and a vegetable, one looked like a sandwich, and another had something like a salad with dressing on it, and the last one looked like it had salmon on it. They were really cute. I wish that they had different bruschettas in America. We went to the restaurant, and Tiffany and I spotted gnocchi on the menu, so we had to get that. We got 4 cheese gnocchi, which was really tender and good. We were so full from the bruschetta that we hardly ate anything, but Valentino said not to worry about it. He and his family ate everything on their plates, though. Valentino and his dad got spaghetti, which they twirled like pros, but his mom got just vegetables. Valentino said that she had a lot of food from the holiday so she is trying to eat light now. During the meal, Tiffany had to go to the bathroom. When she came back, though, she told me she didn’t go because the toilet was in the floor. Literally, the floor was flat and had a porcelain dip in it which was the toilet. They also had 2 places for your feet to go so you don’t slip and fall in. Valentino explained that it was cheaper to have that kind of toilet. I didn’t get to see it, but it sounds really strange to me. Even though Tiffany and I were stuffed, they insisted we get tiramisu. Tiffany didn’t eat any, so I ate the whole thing because it was so good. Valentino said that Tiffany can have tiramisu tomorrow since she was too full today. We watched some Italian TV when we got home, which were American shows with Italian voice over.