Auguri, Buon Pasqua, La Pasquetta, Bonfires, Exploding Carts and more

I love the holidays on Facebook. I learned how to say "Auguri" at Christmas, and then this week I found out that it is also a useful word at Easter. Everybody says "Buona Pasqua" (Good Easter), and if you can't remember it, or you can't spell it, you can always just say "auguri", which is a shorthand way of saying "best wishes". I may have to do an entire blog on auguri, but this one is about Easter.

Probably for as many dialects as there are in Italy, there are an equal number of ways to celebrate Easter, however it all comes down to Buona Pasqua, the greeting you will hear everywhere and you will see on nearly every Facebook post. Some of the celebrations involve parades (rather processions), and there are even some that are explosive:

Florence-Scoppio del Carro

In Florence, Easter is celebrated with the Scoppio del Carro, explosion of the cart. A decorated wagon is dragged through Florence by white oxen until it reaches Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence's historic center. Following mass, the Archbishop sends a dove-shaped rocket into the cart igniting the fireworks held in the cart. This spectacular display is followed by a parade in medieval costumes. (Nothing is said about whether they unhitch the oxen or not. I think maybe yes? At the very least, I think it might be hard to find white oxen every year.)

La Pasquetta

The day after Easter is La Pasquetta or the Little Easter. This is considered a day of rest, and often involves taking the leftovers from Easter dinner to parks for a picnic. Many of the shops remain closed, and it is another excuse for a day off, and a day with the family.

Easter in Scotland

Easter is a very important day in the Church of Scotland. In many parts of Scotland, huge fires used to be lit on Easter Saturday, a tradition that dates back to the pagan era when spring festivales were held at this time. (See Easter in Vienna, next.)

Easter in Vienna

Easter Fires (Osterfeuer)

In the Alpine provinces of Austria, Easter fires burn on mountain peaks after sunset on Holy Saturday, and bands of musicians go through the towns, playing sacred hymns.

They are sometimes called Judas fires, because effigies of Judas Iscariot are frequently burned in them. The Easter eve bonfires predate Christianity and were originally intended to celebrate the arrival of spring. The burning effigy once symbolized winter.

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There are celebrations all over the world for many different reasons:  Political, religious, family, historical, etc.  Sometimes, like with Cinco de Mayo we adopt another country's festival as one of our own because of familiarity, but usually we just get used to how we celebrate our own holidays, and miss out on many different, wonderful festivals and traditions.  That is one of the fun things about learning about another country or region and I am looking forward to learning more about the special days of Scotland, Italy and Vienna.

Dee

A Serious Moment

Briefly going back to our sister Julie's response to my Facebook "friend", Mario's contact, I have been thinking about the pros and cons of Facebook, and the internet in general.

I admit that I am addicted. Being here in exile in Southern California, the Internet is my companion, my contact with the outside world, my library, my entertainment, and mostly, my connection to sanity. Yes, there are horror stories out there of people who have come to bad ends, or been swindled out of their life savings through contacts on the internet, but like-wise, I have met some wonderful people who don't want a thing from me other than a chance to communicate. I have Shelley, a fellow American Zucchero fan (not a lot of us out there, I think)who lives in Stockton. Shelley has introduced me to Laura who lives in Liguria, works in Vernazza in the Cinque Terre, and who also loves Zucchero. She is the one who checked out the hostel we are going to stay at in Manarola (another CT village) and told us that it is a nice one, per her inlaws who live there.

There is the incredible Mario, who listened to the disappointed ramblings of an American who he has never met, and went out of his way to talk to one of the most famous people in Italy about me, and arranged for me to meet that person. And not to forget Danilo Sacco, that singer who told Mario the he would be pleased to meet me.

There is Isabella, the delightful Austrian woman who is also a big fan of Zucchero (see the tattoo in an earlier post), who just graduated from a course where she has learned to make prostheses, and who has offered to meet Becky and I and show us around her beautiful city. She also spent time making up a list of places she thought we should see while we are there, and told us how to get around in Wien.

Ok, so any one of those people could be a crazed cannabilistic mass murderer, or they could just be kind people who are proud of their countries, and who want other people from other places to enjoy their stays, and who just happen to spend time on Facebook interacting with people all around the world.

A short story (stay with me, here): When I was working in the ER, we had a problem getting patients admitted to the progressive care unit. There always seemed to be a reason why they couldn't receive our patients , and often we really needed them to take our patients so we could use the beds.

After about 8-9 months of constantly being told to hold the patients, and not getting any cooperation from them, we did the most logical thing to improve matters. We challenged them to a softball game: The ER vs PCU.

It is really hard to stay angry with someone against whom you have played softball. Especially when none of us were very good, our equipment was stuff most of us had scrounged from our kids, and we were spending it at a beautiful park on a lovely day. Sharing the game, and a picnic afterwards gave us a better understanding of each other, and in the long run, improved patient care. And not surprisingly, the next week when we were back to work, and we had to transfer a patient, although they were just as busy as before, they willingly accepted the patient. And we were likewise willing to wait for 1/2 hour while they completed caring for a difficult patient. You see, we found out that they thought we felt we were more important than they were, and that we were demanding and unreasonable when we wanted to transfer a patient. Imagine that.

My point is pretty easy to figure out. If maybe just chatting on Facebook, learning about people in different places, picking up words in another language, helping each other out, or picking each other up when we are down can all in a small way lead to better world understanding, maybe there is still a spark of hope in a world where there are Gaddafi's, and Berlusconi's, and Bernie Madoff's. We can be proud of ourselves for taking care of each other in a family, but when complete strangers reach out across cyberspace to help someone or to create a special moment, I think it is a positive uplifting use of technology.

But I will be careful, Julie.  Thanks for caring.

Dee

Dee's Exciting News and Other Things

Doesn't this trip just keep getting better and better? This latest news for Dee is amazing to me and I certainly hope it comes off. I would offer that maybe a good question to ask would be "do you think there is a chance you will come to the USA to perform? Preferably the west coast?" That might show that her interest really is in seeing him perform, not just meeting him. Fun Stuff!!

Another adventure we have come across (they just seem to keep mounting) is that we discovered another site we both really want to see, although we probably can't work it into this trip. We were told about this place called Hadrian's Wall which in northern England. It runs very close to Newcastle, which it so happens we will be arriving in after leaving Edinburgh. From Newcastle, we will catch the ferry to Amsterdam (yet another adventure we are really looking forward to). Hadrian's Wall was built beginning in AD 122 and runs about 80 miles across England. It was constructed to keep out those rascally Scots from the north. You can walk it or there is a tour where they take your luggage from B&B to B&B for you (or pub to pub :), or you can take a bus along it. Quite beautiful really. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrian's_Wall

We've decided that this particular adventure will have to be on our next trip, but it's not the first thing we've decided we want to see on our 'next trip'. We DO love planning!

P.S. 6 months from today, we will be in London!!!

Becky

A Decision....Of Sorts.

After thinking a lot about it, I have decided the way I am going to approach the situation mentioned (well, sort of) in the previous post is:

1)  I am NOT going to ask to have a picture taken with him/them (and I don't intend to do it even if it is brought up.)
2)  I am NOT going to ask for an autograph
3)  I am probably going to be traveling on a train for several hours (dragging my sister behind me) to go meet someone who I respect, and I am going to approach him with respect, by not taking advantage of the situation.  I am simply going to say hello, perhaps shake his hand, and tell him I appreciate his talent, his work ethic, his voice, and his commitment to the people who pay money to come see him. 

I don't think because someone is a public figure, he/she should be treated like an animal in the zoo.  I think too often, when we really like a performer, we begin to think they belong to us.  After all, we pay him/her/them to entertain us, and therefore, we feel we should have access to them.  I don't think that is how it should be.  I believe we do pay them for just that, to entertain us.  Not to have their pictures take with us; not to answer endless questions (which nearly always are questions that has been asked and answered time after time); and not to be set upon by anyone who sees them on the street. 

If truly given this opportunity, I am going to look at it as a special adventure in my life, a chance to do something that I have never done before, but not a ticket to impose myself on someone, just because of who they are.  To be given the opportunity to just sit and watch, whatever the situation is, and to soak in the ambiance of a different culture, will be one of the highlights of my life.

I hope it happens.

So What If....

So just suppose you had a favorite artist.  Someone whose music or art spoke to you, and for whom you had a special regard.  Suppose it was someone whose music or art lifted you up at a time when you were really down, and sparked an interest in something when you hadn't been interested in anything for a long time.  Now suppose you were serendipitously placed in a position where you were going to meet that person. 

Are you sweating, yet?

I am, and I don't even know what the situation is, yet.  It came about on Facebook.  Now, our sister Julie is doing the "mom" thing.  You know, the one about all the evils that abound on Facebook, and how people have vanished off the face of the earth (or worse), because of liaisons started between the innocent victim (moi?), and the pervert on the other end of the Internet (Mario, obviously).  Becky and I didn't think of any of that.  To us it was just an exciting, unexpected, marvelous adventure that presented itself to us as a gift, a wonderful, happy, (and for me) spine tingling explosion of emotions.  

So back to that meeting of fan and artist.  What would you say?  What would you do?  I think Becky's take on it is perfect:  Try to not look like an idiot.  Well, that is all well and good, but how does one do that?  For one thing, I am not completely sure that he speaks English.  I know Mario doesn't because,  1) the chat was entirely in Italian, and 2) he told me he didn't.  My artist may or may not.  He does sing in English occasionally, and his favorite artist (maybe the one that would have him tongue-tied) is Peter Gabriel, so there is a small chance that I could listen to him speak English with a delightful Italian accent rather than him listening to me stutter my way through in a mess of badly conjugated verbs and confused articles.

In any case, I am not even sure I am reading Mario's email right, and won't know until I hear back from my Italian teacher who I have asked to be my definitive translator (sorry, google translate).  In any case, it raised an interesting question for me.  How would I behave in that situation?  What would I say?  What would I do?  And how would I be perceived?  What do I want to know?  Do I just let him know what his music has meant to me?  Or maybe I will simply say, "Grazie per aver condiviso il tuo cuore, e per salvare la mia anima."

(Perhaps to be continued...)

Dee

E Più Cioccolato (and more chocolate)

Becky and I are both "heavily" into chocolate (heavily being both the adverb and the resulting condition). So, as mentioned in an earliery post, we chose our date for the trip based on the dates of the European International Chocolate Festival in the city of Perugia.

Since we are coming up to an American Chocolate Festival (Easter), I thought I would insert some short videos of the festival in Perugia.

On this one, notice the people waiting for their samples.





I put this one in because I wanted Becky to see how people are dressed for October 19, 2010....Dang, it is going to be hard to keep it to a single backpack.







ALERT: ANYONE WITH DIABETES SHOULD WATCH THIS ONLY UNDER MEDICAL SUPERVISION!






And they have chocolate bananas!!!! Ok, you can watch this if you took your insulin today. Otherwise, you might want to skip it. It is just a video of a lot of boring chocolate.




Becky, do you think if we watched this about 10 times before we leave for the festival, we would be so desensitized we wouldn't even want to eat any? Ok, probably not. BUT, I have been exercising my "control muscles" in preparation by not buying Cadbury Mini-eggs. So far, at least.


Buon Appetito, e dolci sogni del cioccolato. (and sweet dreams of chocolate)

Dee

Auguri Tutte delle Donne nel Mondo.

Today is the International Day of the Woman. Apparently, it is celebrated in most of Europe, and other places in the world, but misses the US. A Facebook "friend" says that in Italy, men come up to you and give you mimosa...the flower, not the drink; sorry, Becky.

So, for all of the women in my life: Auguri Oggi delle Donne!

And also to all of the women in the world who live in slavery, poverty, despair, and hopelessness...this is a day for you... and I hope in some way you receive a bit of unexpected beauty in your day.