Alright guys and gals, here is my displaced myth...

            This story is as true as any story I would ever tell, which is to say that at least the basic events happened, though not necessarily as described.

             So a little while back I was living in Italy and I, having the same fondness as the average hobbit for a well brewed beer, and having been drowned in wine for the last several months, decided to go to a beer festival in a place called Castellina in Chiani, which incidentally is in fact located in an old medieval castle, but that holds no bearing.

            Anyway, I invited my friends Maggie, Ariel, and Erin, since they are all very enjoyable people and after school one Friday, we all planned on hopping a 20 minute train up to Castellina. But Ariel, bless her heart, did not show up on time, as she was in the habit of taking extended naps, So we had to leave her in town with a message on her voicemail, telling her to catch a later train. That being the case Erin, Maggie, and I all got on a train leaving Siena at about 4 p.m. and arrived at the train station in Castellina del Scalo 15 minutes later. We had about a 20 minute hike from the train station to the foot of the mountain on which Castellina in Chianti is situated, so we began our hike. Meanwhile we all imagined that Ariel was at her host parents’ house, napping away the beautiful fall afternoon.

            We all decided to take a break at a vineyard to eat some grapes. No, this is not legal, but it was night 1 of the beer festival, and so nobody really cared as they were all up in the castle having drinks, shooting flaming arrows, and listening to costumed folks reading Dante. While we were there, Maggie, Erin, and I decided that some pictures might be nice, so we started snapping some photos in the lattice rows. We waited and waited amongst the grapes, but still no Ariel, and we were out of phone service after crossing into the vineyard, so we weren’t able to receive any contact from her once she woke up from her nap.

            Nevertheless, we all pressed on and reached Castellina in good time. The festival was set to start in about half an hour, so we went to the only little restaurant in the piazza, and I got probably the best pasta cinghialle I’ve ever eaten, and my friend Maggie got an apple pastry that was positively scrumptious. But again that holds no bearing.

          After dinner we began to partake in the festivities, buying 10 sample tickets each, and using the first five rather promptly before making off to go watch the archers shoot flaming arrows. They were shooting apples off of the heads of scarecrows, which was very fun to watch indeed, when Maggie started feeling sick. She quickly left the party, and made for a little side street in which she could throw up, she insists she didn’t drink too much, but I don’t know what else it could have been. Erin and I were left to our own devices. We quickly used up a few more drink tickets and began dancing, and listening to a fake Dante. We then noticed a rather good looking young man dressed to the nines, handing out bread. All the Italian women were fawning over him, but Erin and I just laughed, as his regalia made him look rather silly to us. Maggie, after recovering from her “food poisoning” rejoined us. Soon, however, she left us to join the other Italian women in fawning over the young man.

            Just then, Ariel presently rejoined us, also looking rather done up, and informed us that her mother had actually made her stay home and do her homework before she could come to Castellina, which seemed fair enough. Immediately when Ariel saw the young man she was also enchanted with him, and only needed 10 drink tickets of her own to get up the courage to talk to him. Unfortunately, after she had put her ten little cups of brew back, it was time to go, and she was in no state to be talking to the young man. She did her best though, and when she was just about to go up to him, she noticed her two host sisters hanging on him, each to an arm. Ariel was a little discouraged as they at least spoke his language, but she was much better looking, and so not altogether dissuaded. She turned to him and in her best Italiano ubriaco she asked “posso avere tu number?” which was close enough for him, because he immediately agreed, and even typed his digits into her phone for her.

            But our train was about to leave, and we had approximately 20 minutes of fast walkable ground to cover before it left us. At some point during all this, Ariel dropped her phone, which was unfortunate, because my phone was dead, and Maggie and Erin had used up all the minutes on theirs, so when we just barely missed our train (or what we thought was a train, but actually turned out to be a bus, which was why we were on the wrong side of the tracks when it came) we were unable to call a cab. But all was not lost, because we saw a guy walking around who looked pretty sober, and we asked him if he knew of a hotel that we could stay at. He said maybe, and called his friend, whose dad owned a small agroturismo (kinda like a country cottage for rent) and there was a room open. The man drove us to the cottage, where his friend was waiting for us with the keys, provided we had the necessary cash money.

Much to our surprise, it was the young man in the fancy clothes handing out bread!!! He even had Ariel’s phone, and when he saw that it was her, he offered to let us all stay in the cottage 1 night for free as long as we left the place looking as good as we found it, which basically meant Maggie couldn’t puke up any more apple pastry in the house.