Whatchu Talkin Bout, Willis?

Mac and I planned a five-year anniversary trip to Italy last year. It was actually our 6th year of marriage, but who cares-it was two weeks in ITALY! A month after we booked our flight, I found out I was pregnant (again). So a little less wine, a little more pizza...I e-mailed my friend Susanna and we planned to have dinner and introduce our "fellas" for the first time.

{Rewind ten years. Susanna was the liaison for a study abroad program I participated in through Auburn University. She is an art historian, natural born comedian, and currently, a tour guide...not just any tour guide. She and her husband Carlo are the kind of people who feel more like neighbors than folks you see every five years.} 

This story is about the time the four of us took a spin around Rome in Carlo's Fiat 500...583, Sand Beige, if I am not mistaken...with a rooster on the dashboard. I think there was something important about that little guy...good fortune, or something. Regardless, we made him our mascot that week.

                         

We met Susi at the Spanish steps and caught a cab to the Jewish Ghetto. We filled our bellies with the most amazing Italian everything in a restaurant that boasted a caricature of Garry Coleman and his famous line, 'whatchu talkin bout, willis?' at its entry. (That alone was worth the trip.)

Carlos was concerned that their idea for the following day wasn't safe for a prego girl...but when we mentioned our Vespa tour of Tuscany (which did not happen), they decided baby girl could handle a few bumps in the road. Mac and I felt like kids on Christmas morning when they asked us to join them for a Sunday drive in Carlo's baby, Carlotta.

What was meant to be a two hour ride, turned into an eight hour inside-out, best-of everything, paparazzi-filled tour of Rome. It. Was. Awesome. I can't decide if 'honey I shrunk the car' or 'honey I blew up the kids' was more appropriate, but we looked like oversized vienna sausages packed in a can. The sun-roof and my back pocket had a staring contest every time we got out to stretch. I think people really got a kick out of seeing us in the middle of a jabillion pedestrians and witnessing how Carlo owned that maze of skinny cobblestone roads...all one way, of course. There is no telling how many instagram feeds our faces showed up on that day. Not to mention dozens of scrap-books we probably made it in...alongside the Fiat, of course.

When we weren't busy fighting off the paps (big belly+small car+lots of iPhone cameras=funny), we sampled Rome's oldest gelato, Rome's newest gelato, Rome's best gelato, and the gelato that tourists think is Rome's best. We drank Rome's oldest cappuccino, Rome's best cappucino, and then followed that with an extraordinary lunch. It was backwardly wonderful.

We zipped in and out of alleys wide enough for a trash can (there were foreign language arguments at every turn. Even though we didn't understand, we totally understood...turn left! no turn right! slow down! you're going to slow! you'll never make it up this hill...idiot, you're going to do it! haha! you know, normal couple conversations.) While Susanna told us the stories behind neighborhoods rarely visited, amazing painted ceilings, storied fountains, and gave us the scoop on the city's most famous attractions, Carlo was usually, parking, re-parking, and spit-shining his car. It was a familiar scene. I swear if Mac had not been right next to me, I might have believed he had died and come back as an Italian man!

When they dropped us off at our hotel, Susanna gave me a big hug and in that wonderful Italian-Southern-American drawl, she said, "Y'all come back now, you hear?" It doesn't get much better than that. We hated to see it end and have our fingers crossed that it will happen again someday!  Susanna and Carlo: You guys are the best! We still owe you a trip on the back of our tractor (note to self: get a tractor) through the cotton-lined roads of the South!