Drinking games beside the canals of Venice

Hi all,

Quick blog to let you all know that the season of birthdays happens here in Italy too. Last night Ali and I were hanging out at the Rialto markets, celebrating the very recent birthdays of Francesco (Franz) my climbing instructor and Francesca (keka) a climbing friend. One of the very nice things about Europe is the very relaxed attitude to drinking and responsibility in public places. A group of kids with 3 litres of wine and a whole bunch of plastic cups, drinking quite close to a reasonably deep canal with no licenses, barriers, security or police checking, controlling and domineering. One of our favourite spots in Milan is the zone near to Naviglie where there are some Roman columns leftover from a building, which at night time is taken over by young people meeting, drinking, hanging out and socialising - on, around and between the thousands of years old ruins where people were probably doing much the same thing at much the same time of night back then too. Great to see and experience!

Anyway last night we got the chance to learn some fun drinking games. One I've decided to call "mezzo limone" which means "half (a) lemon". The drinkers sit in a circle, with the birthday boy called "capolimone". Each other person in the circle receives the name "un limone" (1 lemon), "due limone" (two lemons), "tre limoni" (three lemons), and so on. The capolimone goes first by saying (for example) "Capolimone mezzo limone due limone" (head lemon half lemon two lemons) as fast as possible. If he makes a mistake, he drinks. The player designated "due limone" or whatever number is called then has to say (for example) "Due limone mezzo limone quattro limone" (two lemons half lemon four lemons) and it becomes the turn of "quattro limone" to respond...make a mistake, drink. answer too slowly, drink. forget where you are, drown. The most common mistake I made was to say "mezzo melone" (half melon) instead of "mezzo limone" but I wasn't the only one...

The other drinking game we learnt involved the following song:

"Filome, Filome, voglio stare insieme a te.
Sul sofa, sul sofa, con lo ziggolo ziggolo ziggolo za!"

Maybe Ali can explain that one...


I'm going climbing this weekend around Bolzano, up in the Alps of Alto Adige, which is going to be a lot of fun. Ali's coming up on Friday or Saturday and it'll be nice to celebrate my birthday in good company...but it would have been nice to spend the time with family and friends in oz too.

Ciao, Paul.