The blog I promised last nite

Last nite, neither one of us felt like cooking, and we had pretty much exhausted left overs, so we ventured out to one of our favorite places for a little bit to eat around 8:30 pm.





We love this little spot, and we feel like locals when we're here. There's nothing better than walking in and hearing a "Ciao!" from behind the bar directed at us. As usual, our platter of meats, cheeses, assorted vegetables and olives was perfect.



After the meal, we strolled across the campo to one of our other favorites, Imagina Caffe to say hello to the boys there. Last night, Marco and Andrea were the only ones working. Before the holidays, Andrea and I had a conversation about one of the bottles on the shelf above the bar, something that was a bright blue. It was blue curacao. I said I'd never tasted it, and he promised to make me a drink next time I wanted it. I'm not a big drinker at all. In fact, you probably would put me in the category of non-drinker, that's how many times I ever have a drink. And Andreas, as well as all the boys at Imagina, know this well. They bring me my tea every day, exactly the way I like it.



Last night I was feeling a bit adventurous, the night was young, so I asked Andreas to make that drink he promised with the blue stuff. Immediately he and Marco got huge smiles on their faces. They decided to make me something called a Blue Lagoon. Oh yeah, they know I am the tea drinker! And then the fun began. The two of them were like an operating team. Marco would say something to Andrea, then we'd see Andrea reach for a bottle and hand it off to Marco. Then another, then we heard "Ice" (in Italian, of course), and watched Andrea hand over a glass of ice. Then " Limone". Mike and I were laughing our heads off, joking that they probably had to go find a recipe book from the back room for this. What a team they were!! Next came the shaking, ala Tom Cruise in Cocktail! And finally, voila, there is Marco pouring out this lovely blue drink. He brings it over on a tray, and just smiles his big smile. Andrea, behind the counter, yells over " Forte!". I understood.. it was a strong drink. Ha, for the tea drinker!


Surprisingly, the drink was good. There's not a whole lot of drinks I can actually get down, but this one was good. I had such a good time watching the drink making process, I told the boys I was going to blog about them the next day, and that led to a conversation about the word blog in Italian. Was it a verb and a noun? In English, we would say, he blogs, meaning he writes in his blog. If it's used as a verb in Italian, how is that conjugated? Io blogo, tu blogi, lui/lei bloge, noi blogiamo...... You can see where this conversation was going! And you can tell we are REALLY trying to learn Italian! Andrea informed us that it is not used as a verb, instead you would say Io scrivo sul blog... I write in the blog. As promised, Io scrivo.


And my blog today would be remiss without this photo of the boys of Imagina Caffe, unfortunately minus Stefano. Marco's on the left, Andreas on the right, Domenico in the middle. Should you ever find yourself in Venice, I highly recommend you visit these guys in Dorsoduro, on Rio Canal.


Thanks, Andreas and Marco, I did not have a headache this morning either! Io scrivo.