A story that simply needs to be told

This past Saturday, a beloved old roomie and I, whose name rhymes with Belly Bessler, decided to celebrate in style by going up to Greve, in the Chianti region, for some delicious and educational wine tasting. This classy excursion followed a night of celebrations that ended with secret bakery pizza and 4 in the morning and a couple of overly-enthusiastic Italian men who insisted on escorting us the 2 minutes home to our front door. Shrewdly avoiding the situation, us girls slid into our doorway and crashed, only to wake up for the adventure of the upcoming day:

9:30AM- Showering, getting ready, eating my Special K (important note about Italian takes on American food: IT IS BETTER. The Special K flakes are crispier, the KitKat bars have more wafer to their Kit, smoother chocolate to their Kat, and even the McDonald's, which I am getting to in the next 2 sentences of the story, at least almost passes as a semi-nutritious meal). Kelly is recovering in a slower manner than I, so we head over to the shining golden arches, conveniently (purposely?) placed right in front of the train station- she orders her 1 Euro hamburger, I try a "Chicken Legend"- breaded chicken, lettuce and Parmesan on foccacia bread- I was tempted to have the TIRAMISU McFlurry (yes, you read that right), but knowing what awaited, I had a mini pep talk with my tummy and told her to be patient.

We board the bus, seated by other Americans looking for a similar adventure, who talked about philosophically lofty topics the entire ride up- shortly into the hour bus ride, a horde of middle school Italian boys, clad in black leather and purple scarves, began scarfing up all free air, polluting it with vulgar profanities in both English and Italian, their voices escalating with every bump in the road. "Belly's" attempting to sleep, I'm trying to drown out the noise and occasional cat calls with some Chiddy Bang-Passion Pit mash ups, and finally, the bus driver slams the breaks. He glares backwards in the mirror and tells the boys that if they do not silence themselves, they will be walking on foot to Greve (I picked up the word piedra, which I'm assuming means something similar to foot...and therefore deduced the entire conversation perfectly...) We move onwards, curving into the hills of Tuscany, nearly careening off of the roadsides into the marshes below, and the boys' laughter grows louder as they scream line after line of American swear words that are not worth repeating. Next: An Italian middle aged man, clad in suo capelli (his hat), walks to the back of the bus, as it is moving, and just stands there, staring at them- doesn't say a word. They simmer, slightly, and when he goes back to his seat a few minutes later, I uttered my best Italian phrase: grazie (thank you) and he gave a small smile (a rarity among the Florentines).

Speed forward: BOYS GET LOUDER. I understand, they're middle schoolers, but this was putting American middle school boys to shame, and when the Italian girls got on the bus, they just giggled as these boys are shouting about the things they wanted to do...I actually started blushing. Middle aged man goes up to bus driver, tells him to pull over- bus driver yells another empty threat, but the boys aren't having it. Middle aged man, however, has had enough. He goes to the ring leader, a 16 year old bloke, lip piercing and all, and starts yelling back, telling him (in rapid Italian) what I assume is "You need to get off this bus immediately." Boy gives him lip, the man grabs his collar and tries to pull him off- boy hits head on the top of the bus roof- BAM! Punches thrown! Boy starts trying to punch middle aged man, but let's face it kid, you're a child. He looks older, but he still lands punches as though his fingers are feathers laying on the sidewalk. Middle aged man has a bit more sass and he is kicking this boy's ass, defending himself but clearly becoming victorious and so, in the manner of little boys, they all jump on the man, pushing him back a clear 10 feet, all 5, 6 of them punching, but middle aged man (MAM for short) holding his own! At this point, they are right next to us in the aisle, and we're jammed up against the window to save ourselves from the blows, both meager and hard. Bus driver pulls back man, boys pull back boys, and we all are told to get off the bus immediately- MAM calls the cops with the bus driver and as we're waiting for the cops to arrive, the boys, still on the bus, start showing each other their battle wounds (which, let's face it, they have more of than the practically unscathed man) and one boy, poofing up his feathers, shows a lip free of blood from where I sat, but in his mind, it was there, and, red in the face, he charges off the bus and proceeds to go after his nemesis...at this point, police have arrived, and we all started getting even more nervous/woke up from the daze of shock- we descend (scendere) the bus to a horde of Italian middle school children all casually smoking their cigarettes like this happens every day- we look to the hills, get directions from a curly haired lad, and the group of Americans sets off on foot for Greve, seriously deserving the beautiful Chianti Classico, crostini (toasted bread) with goats cheese and honey, and chickpea/kidney bean stew that awaited us in the flower basket of a town.

Just another day in Italy...