Buona Pasqua! (Happy Easter)

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I just had to fill everyone in on my experience of Easter in Italy. The night before Easter I attended the midnight mass at Siena’s Duomo. The inside of the Duomo is probably the most outstanding building I’ve ever stepped foot in; the walls are constructed of solely black and white marble stacked one on top of the other and the floor is also covered in pink, black, and white marble depicting stories from the bible. There are 8 smaller chapels off of the main cathedral, each packed with art work by Duccio, Donatello, Michelangelo, Jacopo della Quercia, etc. Above the high alter sets a 6 foot round stained glass window by Donatello, and of course, the alter itself is covered in gold. For Easter the church was decorated with hundreds of candles and flowers.

I went with three of my friends from Guilford and we got to the cathedral about 30 minutes early in hopes to get a good seat, but the place was already packed. Luckily, they had both Italian and English programs so that we were able to follow along with all of the readings and know when to stand and sit. This was my first catholic mass that I’ve ever attended so I had no idea what to expect. The service itself was pretty boring, mostly just a lot of reading by the priest and other religious figures and then the audience would respond. Since, I couldn’t understand half of what was being said I got a chance to really watch the others attending the service. No one looked like they wanted to be there, and you could see on everyone’s faces that this whole thing was a tradition that has been going on for many years and that has lost its appeal for most of the people in the audience. When Ada and I returned home our host mom was still up and she invited us to eat Easter lunch with them (they’re only suppose to provide us breakfast and dinner).

On Easter Sunday at about 1:30 we sat down at a table full of foods that we’ve never seen before. The first course was a type of nonalcoholic beer (a tradition on Easter) and hors d’oeuvres: a piece of bread topped with fish and mayonnaise covered in a tasteless gelatin (surprisingly delicious!), toast with a type of meat that had a very gamey taste, and boiled eggs. The second course was crepes: first one filled with a vegetable paste (that had a mostly broccoli taste to it) and then one filled with a mushroom paste. By the third course we were all already struggling, but we had two more to go. The third course was potatoes, deer (when we didn’t understand the Italian word for the type of meat we were eating the 16 year old sister shouted “BAMBI!”), and cooked greens. After this course we took a break and took pictures and watched Eli open the chocolate Easter egg she received. After about a 10 min. break, Leonardo brought out Limoncello, 4 different types of white wine, and a fermented white wine (specific to Tuscany-this sort of tasted like apple cider). While he was setting all the drinks out Rosetta, brought out a strange dessert of coffee and chocolate made from pasta that was shaped like a lamb, a lemon cake, another odd cake with whole eggs (see pictures-a tradition in Leonardo’s family that we couldn’t figure out), and chocolate bars.

We’d been eating for an hour and a half and Ada and I were exhausted, so we both napped for the rest of the day!

I hope everyone else had a great Easter!

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Photos

Elisabetta and I
With the weird pasta, dessert sheep.

The Host Family
Leonardo, Rosetta, Elisabetta, and Laura

Just the Girls of the House
Rosetta, Elisabetta, Ada, Me, Laura

Comments

[Sara]

That dessert sheep looks quite tasty.