Easter Celebrations

Well I told you about the Easter Mass at midnight, but that was just the beginning of the Easter celebrations in town!  On Easter morning, we went to Roggi's to get lunch because it was the only place open.  They were really busy preparing their Easter feast which some people sat down for.  We just got our pizza and went back to studio.  Kelsey and I worked hard all day on seminar drawings and studio progress, and before we knew it it was dinner time.

For dinner, one of the cooks gave up time with her family to make us a real Easter meal.  They brought out all the courses at once, and the menu included:

Ham! with a pineapple-bacon bits sauce on it
Peas, which are always delicious here
Roast beef, more cooked than usual
MASHED potatoes
Salad
Hard boiled eggs

And for dessert they had some sort of almond cake with cups of strawberries and bananas, which we poured over the cake.  I was so happy that we had ham and potatoes, my favorites!  Only think it was lacking was some warm butterhorn rolls smothered in more butter.

The rest of Easter we spent in studio, and that night before bed Kelsey and I, for the first time, did our Lenten workout.  Better late than never, right?  We did lunges down the hall, but could hardly stand up because we were laughing at ourselves so hard.  We also did wall push-ups and leg lifts, and Kelsey started using the punch-balloons my mom sent as an arm workout until I convinced her 1:30am was probably to late to be making that much noise.

On Easter Monday we had planned to wake up early and work in studio, and at 11:30 we rolled out of bed to get ready by lunch time.  Easter Monday is a national holiday in Italy, so we didn't have cooks to make a two course meal for once.  We got handed sack lunches, and I honestly questioned when we would be getting the second-course sack.  Lunch was a piece of bread and some meat, a piece of fruit, a candy bar and a juice box (which I have banned myself from drinking).  Most people went and got a pizza, but I toughed it out until I decided to finish my Ritz crackers and nutella. 

While we were working in studio this afternoon, I started hearing music outside our window.  I ran upstairs to see what the commotion was, and I got to the front door just in time to see the Jesus statue going back into the church.  I'm assuming they took it out when the bells started going off (and continued going off every 30 minutes) and paraded around town and back again.  The band went by, followed by the whole town, and they all marched into the church.  I went back to studio, but right after that Andres came in and said they were having Mass outside.  Then we started hearing either firecrackers or a massacre coming from the church.  Easter Monday is a party too! Firecrackers and even 3 canon shots went off for a good while, and then we went back to work on our projects.

America could learn a thing or two from Italy, like how to throw a party for Jesus.  Still working on studio, being a good little student and making up for the lack of work I did all semester!  I can't believe there's only 12 days left of school at Santa Chiara and then only another week and a half until I'm back in the states.  These next weeks are going to fly by, and then it's back to Kraft mac'n'cheese, Wal-Mart and consistent store hours. And, how could I forget, my Auntie Anne's pretzel I'm getting the second I set foot in the Chicago airport!

Cara Marie