Happiness is a plate of polenta

Nearly everyone we've met (or, in Rowan's case, seen again) in Italy has been amazingly kind and generous. I can't even count the times that I've been moved by people's generosity here. My most heartfelt thanks and appreciation goes out to everyone who has helped make this trip a wonderful and memorable experience.
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On Friday night, we went out to dinner with almost all of Rowan's former classmates from her time here in Italy. We went to a very nice restaurant at the top of a hill that specializes in regional food.

I had mentioned over a month ago to the man who organized the gathering that I hadn't eaten any polenta in Italy, which is part of the reason why we went to this particular restaurant. So I opted for the "Monte Polenta," a mountain of polenta.
In the middle is the giant pile of polenta, surrounded by (from the top) a gargantuan slab of gorgonzola cheese, a massive pile of porcini mushrooms, two sizable sausages of wild boar meat, and a heaping helping of donkey in gravy. I finished almost the entire thing; I don't know if this fact is impressive or disgusting.

The dinner was loud and high energy because of all the people, and was very enjoyable. The food was excellent, and we had a wonderful time.Of course, the meal had to end with limoncello. Afterwards, we went to a bar for drinks, and then another bar for drinks...

This resulted in Rowan, who is afraid of motorcycles, asking a friend to take her for a ride on his motorcycle.
She got on the back and, before he even started the engine, promptly tipped over sideways off the bike, bruising her butt.

She did manage to go for a short ride, but also managed to completely destroy her shoe somehow.Notice that not only is the heel missing, but the front of the shoe has separated from the sole.

We got home at 4:30 in the morning, which wouldn't have been a problem except that we had to get up at 6:30 to get ready to catch a train to visit the English classes at Rowan's high school.

When we had a break, Rowan napped on a couch in the coffee shop.That evening, we went for drinks with Rowan's other group of friends.
We went to Il Pirata, The Pirate. The place was decked out in pirate regalia, and our waiter was a tough-looking biker-sort-of-dude, but was very nice. Rowan was feeling a little under the weather (completely unrelated to the previous night's events, of course), so she ordered an orange soda. The biker dude/waiter made fun of her, talking in a very high-pitched voice while he handed her the soda.

We got home at a reasonable hour that night. After a restful slumber, we are currently doing laundry and preparing for the flight to Singapore. We leave in two days.