Last night I was the only girl at an Italian boy's bachelor party. I did not think that I should go, but my boyfriend insisted that I join them. They had kidnapped the groom-to-be about an hour earlier and made him dress up in scuba diving clothes and swim in a dirty little pond. I had been envisioning a night of strippers, but it turned out to be a night of the best seafood in Versilia. We started out at an aperitivo in the port of Viareggio, with 2 bottles of Prosecco, olives, bread with salt and olive oil, and cheese. The boys were eating like there was no tomorrow, which led me to believe that either dinner would be simple, or they were not going to eat dinner. Well, it was neither of the two. We made our way over to another restaurant called Mezzo Marinaio, and there were already 2 opened bottles of the table white wine. Out came two platters each of warm seafood salad, marinated anchovies, scampi, pancotto, and grilled langoustines. I was dipping the whole wheat bread into the olive oil and savoring the anchovies with pickled red onions. I would have been happy with just that, but it was only the beginning.
We moved onto the pasta dishes of linguine with scampi and a parsley sauce, and little tubes (yay!) with chopped up cooked fish in a tomato sauce. Meanwhile, wine was flowing like a river, and I was sitting opposite a man who kept refilling my glass as if it were water. They kept making the bachelor chug his wine, and pretty soon I was starting to get a little concerned. Every platter that arrived at the table left empty. Afterwards, we were served the fritto misto, which came with fried calamari, shrimps, zucchini, and smelt. There is nothing like a great fritto misto with some fresh lemon juice, but if you are not used to eating oily things, like me, it can do a number on your stomach. 10 bottles of wine later (that means probably 1 bottle a person and then some), we were wrapping things up with our Dessert Versilia, which is some sort of ice cream with hard alcohol in it.
Cultural difference: In Italy, even packaged desserts come with really strong alcohol in them, not just the aroma and flavor of what the alcohol tastes like, but the real thing.

I felt like I fit right in last night. I don't think I consumed as much as the boys did, because they really took it upon themselves to go all out, but I definitely held my own at that table, and I am quite proud. Suffering a bit of a hangover, but quite proud.