In a matter of weeks, DaveyDanceBlog will be 5 (five) years old. I know— I feel old…my knees are stiff.

Recently, my good friend, Barb, forwarded on an email she had written to our mutual friend, Megan, about my visit to Italy which gave birth to the first few DaveyDanceBlog videos. 

The blog originally began on a whim as a very personal ‘post-card’ project. Barb’s account paraphrases our misadventures while we rushed around Italy over a few days. I am touched by how positively she describes my manic company. 

I hope you get a kick out of the story. I know I did.

……………….

“this is all i guess some sort of follow up of david’s visit here.

it was so great megan…and such a crazy series of events and feelings of being so alive. and i guess similar to something like the alexander technique, its overwhelming to spend time doing something that makes you feel so open, and then negotiate what follows with any semblance of clarity. his flight getting here was delayed and when he got here, there was some confusion about how to get my hotel from the airport. he called from a payphone and i was giving him directions (sort of) and he was like i am calling from a payphone and I’m about to run out of…..and then he was cut off.

so about 2-3 hours later, he calls again saying he is at the tram stop somewhere near my hotel. so i went and found him. i had the following day off, and david had decided that he wanted to make a series of video blogs that involved him being filmed dancing with a big headset and his ipod in front of any number of famous landmarks. so we decided to take the train to Pisa and film in front of the leaning tower…..

well we drank a lot the night before, and instead of waking up to catch the 7:30 train, we ended up on a 12:45 train…..there was a stopover in florence so we got out, and took a video in front of this fountain. then we got on the train to pisa and arrived sometime around 4:30. we took the video in front of the tower, and walked around for a while. we had dinner and got on the train to go back to florence. the train we were supposed to take switched tracks so we missed it. then we got on the next train and ended up in florence. when we got off the train, we looked at the board and realized that the last train back to rome from florence had just pulled away out of the station. meanwhile, while david was loading the footage from pisa onto his computer, something happened and it was deleted. so we decided to get a couple of bottles of wine and go back to pisa, and just walk around drinking wine until the sun came up and we could shoot the video again.

so, we bought the wine, and went to go back to pisa. but we missed the next train. so there was one last train to catch before they stopped running. so we decide we will walk around florence some more…we got lost and nearly missed the last train. we ended up in pisa around 2am. decided we were cold and tired, and had to pee very badly. so we got out of the train station and found a hotel that was like 30 euros a piece per night and included breakfast. by the way, the train ticket on the way to florence/pisa was lik 45 dollars a piece or something for us to take 5 minutes of video.

we got to the room and drank a bottle of the wine that we bought 3 bottles  for 10 euros…out of mcdonalds cups….went to sleep for 3 hours and woke up and took the video over again. Then we went to take the next train back to florence. the train we were supposed to take switched tracks so we missed it. then we got on the next train and ended up in florence. we got out and took another video at the famous cathedral in florence. we got back to the train station and the train to rome was delayed 30 minutes.

it also only had first class tickets, so we payed like 60 euros a person or something. so we finally get on the train and end up in rome at 2:30. my call time to the theater is 3:30. it was crazy. so then that night, david came and watched the show. we went out afterwards and had dinner and drank. our plan was to get up early and go into the center of rome and take some more videos….well we woke up late again, but ended up going with chris into the center and basically spent 4 hours chasing david around the city. there were a number of times where chris and i had to just stand still until we could find him again. we had a bottle of wine at lunch.

got to the theater, I’m still tipsy…david came to the show again and watched from backstage. afterwards, we went out for dinner with the crew and abby and david parsons. david and david actually got along, i thought dp would be totally taken aback by david f’s humor. anyway, after dinner we went with the guys to this bar and drank lots of grappa and then went back to my room where david fell asleep while taking a bath and he and giando and i finished off a bottle of baileys…..this is about 5:30am..david’s plane is supposed to leave at 9:30 or something. i set my alarm except its for the wrong time because of daylight savings….

anyway, at 9am, daves like what time is it?? FUCK!

haha. so we start running around trying to figure out a different flight for him to take and we can’t find one that is less than like 700 euros. we finally find him an overnight train ticket for 130 euros….so he goes to the train station in the evening…..i get a text message from him at 9am this morning saying

“ticket was invalid. i had to stow away until bologna. this just keeps getting better. more details soon.”

so I’m not quite sure if he’s ended up again in paris or not. it was such a ridiculous couple of days but it was so much fun. and it made me remember all the times that the 3 of us are in a room together and you and i are wetting our pants with laughter. its really something to hang out with someone who is just a ball of creativity. its so inspiring because his mind is just always finding a new project. it was refreshing and so much fun, and we missed your presence so much…..”