Allora...

Pasta, beer, pasta, meat, gelati, pasta, pizza, beer, gelati

Three years of Italian and my most recent binge watching of Season 2 of Master of None prepared me for my trip to Italia. Little did I know the only words I'd really need to know were grazie, prego, ciao, and of course, Allora. Grazie Dev.

Top 5 favorite things in Italy:

5. The people
Like the actual Italian people, not the "bobbity-boop" faux Italian tourists that don't speak a lick of Italian (#dominickdecoco). Everyone is also ridiculously good looking; tan, tall, symmetrical, in sartorialist-worthy fashion. In Civita, I reluctantly asked an older gentleman if I could take a picture of his dog. Thinking he would give me a dirty look and begrudgingly nod with disapproval, I slowly started to pull out my camera. Before I could even remove the lens cap, he bent over and lifted his dog and showed it to me, smiling from ear to ear like it was the newborn lion prince of Africa, or in this case, Italy.

4. Gelato
I put away gelato like it was my job and I was told that my business would only succeeed if I stopped at every gelato stand and ate all their ice cream. Yes, I will one day own that business. If I recall correctly, I ate gelato at least twice a day (sans the diabetic coma that ensues shortly after).

3. Driving
The nice Italian man in the Hertz store asked if I wanted the insurance. I happily obliged not knowing whether or not I would find myself clipping someone's scooter or turning down the wrong street only to wedge myself between two buildings (#masterofnoneepisode2). That was not the case. Driving a car in Italy was just about the same as driving in New York City, which I should now have a black belt for, if they started handing out black belts for driving really well in New York City. I unfortunately did NOT get to drive a manual transmission, as per the request of my other passengers who feared for their lives with all the supposed hills and curves around Positano. For anyone else without a black belt, I'd recommend taking the insurance and kissing your loved ones dearly before embarking on said task.

2. Boats
Nothing makes you feel wealthier than being chauffeured around from island to island while tanning your (face) cheeks and drinking several Nastro Azzuro beers. I was fortunate enough to take a private boat around the island of Capri on two separate occasions, once with an Italian Robert Loggia look-alike as my skipper. I found out shortly after that if you say you know how to drive a boat you can even rent one yourself! Though I'm a terrible liar so that wouldn't have worked out for me, plus I would've probably lost my deposit, along with their boat.

1. The pasta
My apologies for the most cliche #1 favorite thing, but if you don't like pasta, fuck you. Pasta is amazing.