One time I ate horse, and maybe joined the mafia.

Here's the thing about traveling with hippies and vagabonds.  We can't possibly be satisfied with getting a hotel (or hostel, I went to college, too), gallavanting around the city, maybe getting a drink at a local dive and asking a respectable looking citizen (usually a cop) where you can get the best street food.  No, we insist on getting lost in the jewish ghetto, renting an apartment with two crazy stoners who don't speak english, and convincing the city bus driver to take us 45 minutes out of town so that we can get hammered on the beach with a bunch of strangers, all under the guise of going to language school so that you can tell your faculty advisor back in Tallahassee you didn't totally obliterate his advice of spending the semester studying art history in Florence. 
When traveling abroad you either are these vagabonding roustabouts, or you meet them, or hopefully both. 

While studying language in the tiny southern town of Lecce, Italy I befriended a great number of Ohioans who were a great asset to me largely because the citizens of Lecce took interest in their amble busoms and blonde locks, and left me to begging for sparkly trinkets and leftover pastries with the rest of the gypsies and vagrants.  I'm still great friends with a few of these beauties (the vagrants and hippies), and spend an unholy amount of my time on facebook being jealous of their glamourous, employed lifestyles.  Because they actually went to class and were motivated and intelligent.  Lots of love, ladies! 

Unfortunately, I fell out of touch with the perpetrator of this story.  A lovely blond from Akron, Ohio, she had, naturally, started dating one of the local citizens who owned either an art studio or a wine shop. When the subject of cuisine came up one night, he was taken aback when we admitted to never having eaten horse before, because we're american and don't eat animals that star in sitcoms.  He promptly told us he would take us out to dinner and we were to meet him at 72 Via Carlucci (or something) at 9 pm for an early dinner.  Italians sleep until 11, wake up and eat and yell at each other, take a nap from 2-5, then start their business at 6 pm, retiring for the night at 4 am. 

We met Marcello in front of a huge, wooden door with wrought iron handles at about 9:45 because only Americans and maybe the English are ever on time for anything.  He knocked thrice on the door when a large, bushy man who looked like Hagrid, or maybe Brutus (from Popeye not Caeser) cracked the door.  "Ciao, Marcello.  Chi sono?" 
"Amici, amici.  La mia ragazza e una amica.  Possiamo?"
"Si, si, si.  Si puo."
Don't speak Italian?  Neither did I, so don't worry about it.
We gingerly walk through Hagrid's living room, you know, like you do when you have to know a secret password to get into the house of fuckin Don Corleone.  Around the corner, through the dining room, into the kitchen and... oh, good, there's a stairwell in the pantry. 
Up the stairs to another door.
knock knock knock.
"Ciao, ciao Marcello.  Benevenuti, ragazze."
"Benvenut...o?  Grazie?"
"Per favore, vieni vieni."
"Gra...zie?"
Through the parlor, around the corner, and into the dining room, Donica and I try not to touch anything or make eye contact.  Marcello has not said a word to us since we arrived at Sonny Red's hideaway.
Upon arrival in the dining room, we are seated and our five course meal is begun.  Italians do not mix entrees or flavors, despite what the Olive Garden would have you believe.  Salad and bread is served entirely separate from soup, which is served before pasta, which is served before meat, which is followed only by dessert.  You are to finish each course before the display of the next, lest everyone at the table laugh and make fun of you for watching "The Godfather" too many times.  Stupid American. 
It was in this manner that each of us was presented with our fourth course, a steaming plate of horse chunks covered in red sauce, and no bread to sop it up or make me feel like I wasn't eating Mr. Ed. 
Honestly, I've always been an adventurous eater, and not squeamish at all, but horse just wasn't for me.  It was freakishly tender and you know what, I have seen "The Godfather" too many times.  movie reference, eh? get it?  eh?
But the Tiramisu was out of this world.
The company and conversation was pleasant if not weird.  We tried our best to communicate and laugh at each other's cultures.  And bonus- we left from a secret exit at 4 am which was at least 6 blocks from where we started.  Also, the next night Marcello took us to Mare di Castro, a nearby coastal city, to swim in the Adriatic sea at midnight and dine on Octopus, which has since become one of my favorite foods.

Probably not the door we went through, but a nice one nonetheless.