Not Another Italy Post

So my boyfriend and I stayed in Varenna for a couple of days before everyone else met up in Menaggio. We decided we should have our anniversary dinner while we were alone (to at least have a little private romance). So we walked to a restaurant we picked out for dinner, inevitably got lost, and ended up just walking to the next town, Fiumelatte, just down the road. The restaurant didn't open for 30 minutes, but the attached cafe had beer and snacks. So we sat near an older couple and we all silently watched the sun make its slow decent down the side of the mountain opposite us across Lake Como while sipping on nice small beers. It was lovely, to say the least.

So the restaurant opened. We could hardly contain our excitement for our first real Italian meal. We perused the menu and decided: he was having steak, and I wanted to be nice and rustic and have a fish from the lake. [I would like to note that I am a recent pescetarian convert. I hated fish my whole life, and so it was a non-issue when I became vegetarian. Recently, however, I have been eating that shit like it's going out of style.] So yes, we ordered our little meals and sipped our little beers and were having a wonderful quiet time. Then the food came. My fish was a little more rustic than I had anticipated -- they had literally gutted the thing and put some tomatoes in it and baked it for a minute. I apparently blanched upon seeing my plate, but, as a vegetarian, decided I had better be cool with it, because that's what I'm eating anyway, right? A fucking fish. After averting its glassy eye, I ate almost all of it, albeit with disturbed pauses. Mostly I just felt like I was in science class: yup, there's the brain..let me just pick some of the flesh off the spine.

I have since learned I need to ask for it "cleaned." I'll remember that one.