EbTheRedHead: Holiday Blues part 2

We're not sure yet what was the motive concerning the mass shooting at a holiday party in California. My heart aches for the victims involved. I was messaging my friend in Italy about the current events taking place here in the States, as well as our city in Chicago. The mood is dreary wherever you go. She was mentioning that she's been in funk over there as well. She misses her old life sometimes. It must be hard being a foreigner in a new country.
Back to recapping my trip. At this point my visit was coming to an end. Me and my friend made our way to Bari to go see the Grotte di Castellano. We spent the whole afternoon there. We were getting hungry since the tour to the caves lasted 2 hours long. Luckily we brought along a change of clothes. Since the temperature dropped to 57 degrees in the caves, it was hot outside in the 90s. We wanted to get out of our layers and wear our day dresses. I bought some dresses in town the day before for 5 euros each! The local fair was happening and we checked it out to see if we could find some goodies. My friend was telling me of the scandal that was happening in Italy. Apparently, some of the clothes in these markets are made in China, but Italian vendors have been sewing tags saying they are made in Italy. I will say, you can tell by the quality right away where the garment is made. But since I'm no stranger to bargains, I still bought some budget friendly day dresses. They were cute after all!
We drove past Monopoli and my friend suggested we check it out for dinner. We've already been in Bari a couple of times and we wanted something new. She heard good things about Monopoli so I trusted we were in for another adventure. The parking situation was a little crazy, for in this town, there were a lot of no parking signs. We didn't want to risk the car being towed, so we drove around for nearly an hour trying to find an ok spot we felt comfortable with. We asked around for a good restaurant and they suggested Il Guazzetto Ristorantino. We walked past it and it wasn't opened, yet (despite it being 7:30pm) but they gave us an 8pm reservation and told us to come back. My friend joked that Italians eat dinner no sooner than 9pm so they knew right away we were tourists. Who cares I wondered. I was hungry now. Waiting around for 30 minutes was not such a bad idea. The man who took our reservation also mentioned that the restaurant was completely booked for tonight. Our table had to be ready for other guests coming in at 9pm. We told him we shouldn't take no more than an hour for sure. He seemed ok with that at the time.
We did another passagiata in centro and loved Monopoli! Lots of outdoor seating for dining and live music playing. It was a Friday night and there were a lot of people walking around. We walked over to the dock and people watched there. We knew we had to go back to the restaurant soon so we didn't walk too far away.
The Il Guazzetto Ristorantino was officially opened! There were people already inside getting to their tables. We got a bottle of wine and ordered the specialty fish of the day with pasta of course. My friend wanted il fruta di mare so we murdered that dish. It was seafood heaven!
Me and my friend were enjoying our evening, drinking wine and finishing things up at the table. We decided on no dessert since we wanted to try the gelato there in Monopoli. Remember, every town does things differently! The man who took our reservation came up and asked if there was anything else we would need and we graciously said no; everything was perfect! Then he kindly reminded us that we had to leave. The guests that had the 9pm reservation have arrived and he needs our table. Well that's a first! So much for great hospitality! We got up and before you knew it, they started to clean up our table to make way for the new patrons. A great food experience although we were rushed out of there. This place is definitely high on demand on a Friday night!
We went to the gelato place to sober up a bit. That wine got us a little tipsy. Nothing like a double scooped gelato to sober you up! We did another passagiata for the rest of the night before we headed back to town. It was sad knowing I had to leave the next day. This day was perfect...