Dirty, Dirty

Once upon a time we went to Verona, Italy. I was invited by two of the girls in my study abroad program; Erika and Martini. They technically both named Erika/Eryka but I feel like that could be confusing to read and keep track of if you don't actually know them. One is very blond and the other is very not. They are a fun pair and I was excited to get to travel with them.
We left on Friday morning, via the train and it took a couple hours to arrive in Verona, which, you'll not be surprised to hear, was FUCKING freezing. It was raining, I had no pants on, and it was easily -312 degrees Celsius. So we arrived at our B&B and were surprised by how beautiful and clean and nice it was. For a place you find on hostelworld.com for 23euro a night, this place had super comfy beds and nice bathrooms and it was clean and cute and apparently run by a couple of gays (who were adorable). That's besides the point.
We then went exploring, almost died from frostbite coldness, and saw Christmas markets.

Verona is a beautiful place defined by a play written by a guy who never went there (Shakespeare never left Britain), and made up most of the people. There is some truth to the families, though they had vaguely different names. There was a feud between two of the families, but Shakespeare appropriated all that for his play. Verona obviously took advantage of the fame and made everything Romeo and Juliet themed. You can go to her 'house' and her 'tomb' and Romeo's 'house' and the only available souvenirs are Romeo and Juliet motif. In actuality, there is nothing particularly romantic about Verona.

EXCEPT THIS:

It's the name of a store we found.

After a day of freezing and hoping to find a fire to throw myself on just so my core temperature could rise a few degrees, we went back to our hostel and crawled into bed around nine. You may say that is kind of early for three awesome girls like us, and that's true, it is, but at that point we just wanted to be warm and we were exhausted from travel and being frigid cold all day.
So we were laying around, still super cold, laughing and talking into the night until we got tired.
Eventually someone asked, "What's your number?"
We aren't talking about phone number either. That's code for "How slutty are you?" or "What are the chances you have herpes?"

Erika and Martini answered, but their numbers aren't important to the story (and also publicizing that without asking would be rude), and then I told them..."Seventeen."
Martini laughed and Erika just shot up in bed and screamed "YOU DIRTY GINGER."
Which is funny a) because that has nothing to do with how many people I've kissed and b) because I'm solidly within the brown-blond range of hair color and totally not even sort of a ginger.

It was an interesting reaction to say the least, and it makes for a good story. Erika: great at life lessons...and insults.

Moral of the story: All gingers are whores...apparently.