A Real Italian Winery.

So I'm going to stray from the normal here and add a mid-week blog post to highlight the gigantic misunderstanding we had here. The name of the game so far is “wow that isn’t what I expected.”

We all had this brilliant idea to go to a winery to try Italian wines and have a nice group dinner. Two girls had done this program in the past and raved about how nice it is to go to a winery, taste the Italian grapes, and experience the overwhelming beauty of the countryside at dusk. So all sixteen of us got ourselves dolled up and hired a driver to take us to the winery. The driver showed up on time and we set out! After about thirty minutes we were circling in a village. We found ourselves in front of a hotel in the village. Apparently this is where we were meeting the other van (each van sat eight and we didn’t live very near to one another.) Our first thoughts were, “I was expecting a winery in the hills but this is nice too.” When we got out, we met the other group at the edge of a cliff. It was a beautiful view and we were actually really impressed. We stopped for a rushed photo op and packed into the car. At this point, we were told that we were stopping twice for photos and then heading to the winery.

Next, we drove to the town over, Numana. We got out and realized that it was the exact same view from a few meters farther back. It was actually a worse view than before. So we were quickly bored and went back to the vans and waited for the drivers to get back. We waited for about fifteen minutes for them to return, and by this point we were extremely hungry. When they finally returned, they said to us, “Didn’t you go walk around the town?” Well no sir, we didn’t because you rushed us at the last place and we were told we were here for a photo. And also we’re starving.

So after another thirty-minute car ride, we arrived to the winery. It was situated on a quiet back road in the middle of the scenic hills. We were very impressed and ready to get wine drunk on the region’s riches! We were introduced to the owner who told us about the winery and the region and the location from the front porch. Then we went inside and had a tour of the building. By that I mean the storage room and the tasting room. It was a small place. We also had to stand because there wasn't enough space for us to all sit. Again, we were just ready for some wine. He came out and opened a bottle of red wine. He divided this among sixteen glasses, which gives each person about a drop and a half, but to be fair the wine was really amazing. After finishing our wine we were given food to cleanse our palate. Well, we were given four packs of saltine crackers. To share amongst ourselves. The next wine was some white wine—I don’t even remember what it was because I was so not impressed. Apparently other girls liked it but I detest sweet whites so I wasn’t a fan.

After about twenty minutes of walking around the tiny room, watching the girls buy wine, soap and olives, we were ushered out. Yes that’s right. Those two wines were the extent of the wine tasting and apparently we were being taken to dinner (which was not at the winery.) At this point we had been out of the house for four hours with two drops of wine and a few miserable crackers and we were feeling pretty disappointed. But we were hungry and looking forward to dinner. On the way, we stopped on the side of the highway in a field and were told to get out. The drivers thought we would want to take photos of the sunflowers so we stopped by the field. But since it was dusk, the flowers were “sleeping” and resembled death. We were hysterical at this point. We didn’t think it could get worse. There was one live sunflower in the entire field and the other girls were waiting in line to take a photo with it. I just couldn't stop laughing and when it was my turn to use the sunflower, I chose a different photo opportunity. I took a photo with the field of dead-looking flowers and had myself looking as disappointed as they did. I think I’m really funny and by this point, we decided it was time to leave.

We arrived back in town to a really small, hot restaurant. We sat down and waited to be served. We were THEN told that everyone gets one glass of red or white wine (we weren’t allowed to choose a type, just a color) and then after this we were told that we weren’t actually getting dinner, but we were getting a series of appetizers. By this point we threw our hands in the air. The food wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t that great and there was enough food for everyone but if you couldn't eat meat, you were going home hungry. My table didn’t eat the entire plate of meat that was served; instead, we filled up on bread. It was a disaster.

Well how could it get worse right? Well, then we were told that we had to individually pay the restaurant and the driver separately. It was 49 euros total so we all just brought a fifty so it was a twenty-minute mess figuring out how to pay separately. Nobody had change and the restaurant didn’t have enough to break all our big bills and the drivers needed exact change.

It was, by far, the worst day in Italy. But it was also the most hilarious. Hilariously horrible. Horribly hilarious. Nothing happened like it was supposed to and now it can only get better!