9/06/11 Marco: Quick with a Bottle Opener

I first met Marco and Sylvia about three years ago when they spent a month in Canada studying English.  Unfortunately our time together back then was brief.  Marco will shortly receive his master’s degree in agriculture and it is obvious that he has a passion for ecology, food and wine.  He may also have a passion for Polish women, but that’s another topic altogether.

In Marco’s hands, a bottle opener is a weapon, and before I could say “basta, quest’e abbastanza” (stop, this is enough), five bottles of wine were opened and on the table.  “How are we going to drink all of this?” I asked (yes, I know; that’s a stupid question coming from me).  Marco’s intelligent response was “We don’t have to drink it all; we have to try it all”.  I like this guy.  A while later, we closed out dinner with a shot of anice typical of the region which tasted like a dry version of sambuca.  In my mind, it’s superior; a bottle will be making the trip home with me.

Dinner over, Marco and I made a bad decision and went to the bar.  There we met the bar’s owner, Mario, a likeable guy in his mid thirties.  When he learned that I was visiting from Canada he announced that I was his guest; the drinks began to flow.  We talked about life and how it was different in small towns like Sforzacosta where everybody knows everybody.  Mario felt so confined by his surroundings that he went to the Ukraine to meet his wife, introduced to him through a good friend.  “It’s hard to find the right woman here” Mario said.  But coming from a handsome sweet talking bar owner like Mario, what I heard him say was “I have a reputation in town”.

Marco went to Poland to study a few years back.  Although that was the official purpose, I suspect that the likelihood of ulterior motives are strong to certain given the fact that he’s mentioned the same sense of “small town” confinement.

It was late and I proceeded to make the best decision of the night by calling it quits.  I was destroyed, and unfortunately, my recovery time would be painfully insufficient.