Allora, Aspetta!

Message in a Bottle

Every year a group of some of my closest friends and I remember a special day in Florence, that happened years back when we were students. Who knows why we're so serious about the celebrating, and remembering, of that day--all in all, it was really just a little moment in what has since become a long lasting friendship, but as it turns out, that little moment meant a lot.

We call it "Bottle Day." It was nine years ago, on the 6th of February, and the four of us were studying abroad in Italy. We were new friends, we had all just met about a month earlier, and we had that kind of close friendship that seems to happen to people when they are put in close study-abroad situations: really close friends, really really fast. Normally those kind of friendships last about the duration of the time abroad--but in this case, we've all been very close friends ever since. We're lucky. Maybe it's because of Bottle Day? Well--maybe in part.



This is what happened, in a nutshell (you can read more about that day here and here): the four of us, during a class field trip to Florence, decided that it would be something special if we wrote letters to our loved ones back home, put all of the letters in one bottle, and threw the bottle into the Arno River, to watch it sail away and maybe one day reach those people we loved. I always say this: I don't remember exactly what I even wrote that night. I just remember that four of us friends were together, sharing a moment that we will remember forever. It's the moment that I remember, not the message.



So we celebrate this day every year, and finally last year, while Corrie was studying here in Italy, we decided to meet up, the two of us--two of the four--and remember together: follow our footsteps to the restaurant where we ate, where we emptied a wine bottle with dinner, where we wrote those letters, and then go back to the bridge where we threw the bottle into the river.

It was a nice weekend, although as you can guess, memories tend to take the place of reality: making it more beautiful. Our own dinner at the restaurant wasn't as tasty as we had remembered. It was a pizzeria, right off the river, and we had eaten there the night of the bottle. I always had remembered it as being the best little pizzeria, and here we were, with soggy undercooked crust. Also, we were trying to put together packages for Cassie and Erin, and we couldn't find anything, as hard as we tried, in the middle of all of the shops in Florence. Everything seemed to work out just as we were leaving though: we happily stumbled upon this tiny stationery shop that we had remembered from years past, and we also found the perfect little Florentine pins to go with the rest of the things in the package. We even were given free drinking glasses by the waiters at the pizzeria--little red glasses with Florence fleur-de-lis on them. When it was time for Corrie to head back to Parma, and me to head back to Macerata, we decided that these two days in Florence were just right after all--our memories might have left out some of the details, but all in all, eight years before had been the start of a friendship. And it was clear that that friendship was still strong.

This year, girls, I hope that you had a wonderful bottle day--I miss all of you, and I can't wait to see you again. Next year is the ten year anniversary of this celebration of ours: can we all meet in Florence, and celebrate it together? What do you think? I'll be there if you are.

-Jackie

posted by Stelle in Italia @ 10:26:00 AM