Church, Pizza and Pirates

Today I attended my first Italian mass.  One thing we were not warned:  prepare for an ice age when going to church.  We could see our breath when we were sitting inside.  Throughout the mass we were pretty confused, and it was a struggle to follow along.  They skipped some parts, like the entire profession of faith, and threw in a baptism.  I understood a word here and there, which I was really proud of, but for the most part it was just trying to figure out where we were in the service.  Italians are very good Catholics – they all showed up 2 minutes before Mass and left the second the final hymn began.  An elderly lady sat beside me and I could tell she was laughing at all of us for not having a clue what was going on.  She did shake my hand and wish me “pace” (PASH-eh), meaning peace.  I was half disappointed I didn’t get a good Italian kiss on the cheek.  For communion, we were a little surprised because there were no lines, it was just a flood of people rushing to the Eucharistic ministers.  Overall I was a little surprised at how casual the mass was, because I had heard that they are very reverant in Italy – quite the opposite actually.  Might be because we are in a small town though.

After Mass we headed to a local café – Café Roggi.  There are two parts to this café.  One is an upstairs coffee shop and arcade, the other is on the lower level and it is a nicer sit-down restaurant.  The upstairs café was playing Italian reality shows on tv – looked like a mix of Big Brother and Jersey Shore.  We went to the counter and each ordered whatever type of pizza we wanted.  The waitress hesitated when we ordered pizza, but then went ahead and had us pay and take a seat.  Turns out that they actually didn’t have the kitchen open, but the owner had come in and went to the kitchen to make us food!  After we devoured our food (I may or may not have eaten an entire pizza di quattro formaggio), the owner came up and made sure that we knew the restaurant below had better pizza than what he made.  I personally thought it couldn’t get better, so we’ll definitely be checking that out.  He talked to us in English for a bit, told us that his wife is from Texas and that she studied at Santa Chiara in the 80s. 

After we ate we participated in the Italian siesta, and then took about half an hour doing the sketching assignment we were assigned.  See Uncle Chris?  We do have work to do!  Tomorrow we even have classes!  I have History of Science and Technology or something complicated at 10:30am, lunch, and then a seminar at 1:30pm.  And on Tuesday and Thursday we have studio at 8:30am.  No classes Friday though. And field trips on Wednesdays.  Probably could have just left that out, guess I’m not helping my cause much….

Last night we went to a “Pirate Bar.” Not sure the name of it, but in order to get to the bar you go through doors next to the Loggia and walk down three flights of stairs.  The bar is completely underground and covered with pirate decorations hanging from the ceiling and walls.  There are three different coves you can sit in, we happened to choose the one that had an American flag on the wall, a confederate flag in the middle, and Eminem’s All Time Top 40 list on tv.  Thank you Italian bartender, for giving us the most America experience you can while we are in Italy…  Anyways, I got the cheapest thing on the menu – wine.

Pirate Bar representing America with a flag and Ricky Martin on the tv.  This is half of one of the coves I talked about.  Like a big brick vaulted cieling.

Tomorrow we begin classes like I said, but the bigger news is that the gelato shop in town opens tomorrow.  YAY!!!

Cara Marie

Oh, and I did not spill anything today! Quite an accomplishment! The cake goes to Amanda Watson, however, for knocking over an entire bottle of wine at dinner.  I guess that's enough spill for one day.