art talk and art bar

So last night was the contemporary art discussion over by the Palazzo Pitti with the director of the Uffizi and the director of the Bargello, however it turned out to be more of a screening of a portion of a documentary about contemporary art, and then a long-winded presentation about the Renaissance works in the Uffizi and the Bargello and how art history needs to be emphasized in Italian high school graduation exams. Hmm. And meanwhile there was the wishy-washiest translator EVER who would let them go off for like 10 minutes at a time and like twitch in his seat trying to send them ESP messages to get them to stop for a minute to let him translate, and by the time he finally would, he would give the blandest, most superficial summary of what he caught, which even with my little Italian I could tell was glossing over pretty much anything interesting that had been said. This was another instance of me being frustrated with people who are living in this country who don't speak a word of Italian, because although the discussion as a whole was kind of misleading anyway, I think it would have been far more interesting if it wasn't constantly being interrupted by this inept translator trying to accomodate the apathetic Americans. But if nothing else, the discussion was in a bomb location, with the most beautiful view from the roof of the sun setting over Florence, so if only for that I thought it was definitely worth it.

But oh, the night was just beginning. Since I knew the discussion was going to end too late for me to make it home for dinner, I took maximum advantage of this rare opportunity to actually eat out in this cool area and met up with my friend Ali for drinks and aperitivi at a chic place along the Arno called Noir. However, we were feeling cheap and were not into the €9 cover so we abandoned that plan for a nice €4.50 daquiri-cum-fruit-cocktail and unlimited free popcorn and the Italian equivalent of Cheetos at Art Bar (I mean come on, its not like my diet here doesn't consist of alcohol and carbohydrates anyway). We have a lovely drink and an even lovelier chat (complete with a juicy bitch-fest about my smelly roommate whom I have developed a minor loathing for, just because I can - I mean, the girl hasn't ONCE washed the washcloth she uses in the shower EVERY DAY since we first got here... the bathroom reeks of her armpits. I am utterly repulsed), and then make our way over to Rex for another low-key drink with Sam and Nicole... but on the way, we are stopped by some chic-yet-distressed-looking Asian girls who were in Florence for the weekend and heard us speaking English and asked for directions to YAB, the disasterous club of yesterweek with the bar mitzvah soundtrack and skeezy Italiani, so we steered them away from potential disappointment and towards more reliable (and less expensive) dancing at Twice, which happened to be a block away from the bar we were going to. So basically we got to be those cool locals who go above-and-beyond the "make a left here and then a right at confusion street" norm and actually say "follow us!", and on the way got to clue them into all our favorite spots to make their weekend here truly memorable. We passed Twice on the way to Rex and seeing that it was only 10:30 or so, the place was pretty dead, so we invited them to Rex with us for a drink, which they graciously paid for. Quite a lovely way to pass the time while waiting for our friends to show up and for their club to pick up.

Sam and Nicole made it to the bar and Danny called and asked what we were up to, as he and the guys were going out and wanted to meet up, so we told him where we were and 20 minutes later he showed up for a drink, even though the rest of his gang headed straight to Twice (cute.) After we finished our round, we headed over to meet up with everyone and ended up tearing up the dance floor on what we originally imagined to be a relatively low-key night. After we closed down the club, the boys walked us home to finish what I like to call a lovely little Wednesday evening qui a Firenze. Not too shabby.