A Day of Birthdays

Gianluigi had organized a party for his birthday and invited me to join him and about fifteen other friends for lunch at a seaside restaurant followed by a day at the beach. One big difference about birthday celebrations in Italy as opposed to the states is that in Italy the birthday person organizes and pays for everything. It seems as though it is a way for the person whose birthday it is to say thank you for being in my life, rather than a day to say, “Hey look at me! Aren’t you happy you’re in my life?!” Just another one of those wonderful differences that makes me love the way the Italians live even more. The day started off with me taking a bus over to a beach I had not been to before, San Francesco, to meet Gianluigi. I was the first to arrive and we started the day off with a negroni together.



Slowly the others showed up until our party was complete at fifteen and our server sat us at the best table in the house, a window table, overlooking the beach and staring out to the Mediterranean. The meal started with octopus salad, mussels, three different types of bruschetta, and of course endless carafes of local white wine.



The main course was a pasta with clams in a white wine sauce, but for the first time I have seen this it, was served with basil instead of parsley. Absolutely delicious. Dessert was two different cakes and of course the usual round of rucolino. The lunch was amazing, but it didn’t seem that anyone was there for the food. Instead it seemed that everyone was just happy to be together and having a great time. All that could be heard in the restaurant was our table laughing, joking, chanting songs (both in English and Italian), and the occasional wrestling match that would break out as the friends attempted to throw each other out of the window.




After we had sucked down the last drops of our arugula liqueur we headed down to the beach where some of us went for a swim and others just enjoyed a nice rest on the sand. If you thought that was going to be the end of my day you would be dead wrong. Gianni’s cousin Mary was also celebrating her birthday that day and so Gianni and I had told her we would meet her and her friends on the Riva Destra for drinks that night. Arriving at “Drink’t and Drunk’t” we immediately found Gianni’s cousin and her beautiful friends.


We stayed at Drink’t and Drunk’t for a couple hours of drinking and dancing before the party made its way over to Friends to finish the night off right. I however was exhausted from having participated in two birthday parties and decided to head back home. All I can say is the Italians definitely know how to throw a birthday party, and me passing up the offer to go to the club with eight beautiful girls by myself is proof of that!