The Italian part of my European trek is officially over, but what a time we had! You'll notice that I didn't insert an adjective into that sentence--what kind of a time we had. It was intentional. Truly, we had a great time, but I also developed a love/hate relationship with Italy over the last week. The people are amazingly beautiful, kind and generous, but the systems and the structure BITE. There's a reason Italians are always late...
Antonietta and Tino's wedding was INCREDIBLE out in a small village in the country about an hour outside of Campobasso in South-central Italy. Antonietta lives on a farm even further out from the small town and this region of Italy is soaked in tradition. The day started at 9:30 am with the close friends and family of the bride and groom meeting at their respective houses for pastries and mingling. Anto was not mingling during this time, but getting ready upstairs. At 10:30 Antonietta appeared at the doorway on her father's arm, where her two best friends stretched a ribbon across the doorway.
Before proceeding, Anto cut the ribbon signifying her departure from her family's home to her new life with Tino. At that point we all followed her in our cars down into the center of the village. We parked about 1/2 mile away from the church and we followed Anto and her father through the center of town down the middle of the street all the way to the church. We were like a parade and people were hanging out of the doors and windows of the buildings to watch us pass. When we got to the church Tino was already inside, but all of Tino's family and friends were standing outside the church waiting. Anto and her father went in first and the rest of us followed her in down the aisle.
The ceremony was like normal, and then we mingled outside the church for a while before heading over to the reception site.
We arrived at 2:30 (after getting lost on country roads along the way--thank GOD we were being driven around by some of Anto's Italian friends, or we would probably still be wandering around lost in the country) to appetizers and cocktails set up under the trees of a beautiful garden. Florence and I filled our plates and were munching away, when an Italian warned us about going too fast. Apparently we didn't know what we were in for with the amount of food that was to come. After the cocktails, we moved inside to be seated for the dinner.
3 pasta dishes, 8 seafood dishes, lemon sorbetto, 4 meat dishes, salad, fruit, and wine
over 9 HOURS! In between courses there was dancing, walking, visiting. It was incredible. We thought it would never end. And these were full-sized dishes! One of the pasta dishes was a square of lasagna, a fish dish was an ENTIRE fish, a meat d
ish was a piece of veal with peas. The music was all traditional folk music from the region--LOTS of polka, and the occasional YMCA. When we thought we could not take anymore, we all shepherded outside for the cake-cutting. Anto and Tino popped an ENORMOUS bottle of champagne, cut the cake, toasted, and 
then behind them the fireworks began! Fireworks! Like the 4th of July! They lasted for about 15 minutes, we went back inside to eat the cake, and then came back outside to wander in the garden with appetizer-sized desserts again--eclaires, panne cotta, pastries, etc, etc. By the time we made it back to the Bed and Breakfast at 12:30 am we were exhausted and our feet were killing us. An entire day of high heels, ouchy ouchy. 
THe next day Flo and I left for the Amalfi coast. Anto's brother picked us up at 11:30 to drive us back the hour to the train station where we had to wait for 2 hours because it was Sunday and the trains came infrequently. Finally we got to the station where we had to change and wait another 2 hours-- we were starving and NOTHING was open except a tobacco shop where we each bought 1/2 of an awful ham and cheese sandwich and a bag of chips. We arrived in Naples around 8 pm and changed to another train. At 9:30 pm we arrived in Vico Equense where we had to take another bus to our B&B. We finally arrived at the top of the hill at 10:30 where we were supposed to then call the B&B to come pick us up from there. Flo's phone had died that morning because she brought the wrong charger, and luck of lucks--mine wasn't working. We looked around the empty plaza, in the dark, hungry, tired, frustrated, and wondered what we were going to do. There were 2 older women sitting on a porch looking at us curiously, so I summoned up the courage to go and ask if there was a public phone nearby. They indicated across the plaza. We dragged our suitcases across the cobblestone steps to the phone and started trying to decipher the Italian instructions.
Suddenly, as if from heaven, a woman appeared with a pre-paid phone card and told us (in Italian) that this phone didn't take coins, so we should use her card. We molto-grazie'd her profusely and then proceeded to do something incorrectly. Thankfully she was still waiting just in case, and came back to help. We got through this time to the B&B and a delightful gentleman who didn't speak a word of English answered the phone. I did my best to explain the situation in Italian, and then he said a whole lot of things back--something about 5 or 10 kilometers. All I could say was "aspettiamo qui?" (we wait here?) and then he would say a whole lot of things again with 5 to 10 km.. and I would say "ok, so, aspettiamo qui?" Finally I looked at the angel woman who was still standing by and just handed her the phone. She said "ok.. ok.. ok.. ciao signore," then looked at us and indicated that we follow her. She marched us up the narrow street to a bar, set us up with a couple of espressos and said that our signore would be coming to get us.
Finally a lovely gentleman with rosy cheeks walked in, paid for our espressos,
and drove us to the B&B--Vincenzo was his name, and he was the owner of La Ginestra, the agriturismo. He was so good to us and patient, and we were somehow able to communicate with him speaking slowly, clearly, and very loudly in Italian, and me doing my best to say what little I could, mix in some Spanish, and invent the rest (I acted a few things out too). He fed us dinner, sat with us while we ate, (Flo has a great photo of him and I deep in conversation with our respective Italian-English dictionaries), walked us to our room, gave us hugs and kisses, and called us his adopted daughters.
I have more stories to tell and pictures to share, but this post is already long, and I am writing from my friend Etel's apartment in Switzerland. If I get a chance to post more while I'm here, I will, otherwise after I get back, I'll finish and include pictures too!
Love to everyone!
Antonietta and Tino's wedding was INCREDIBLE out in a small village in the country about an hour outside of Campobasso in South-central Italy. Antonietta lives on a farm even further out from the small town and this region of Italy is soaked in tradition. The day started at 9:30 am with the close friends and family of the bride and groom meeting at their respective houses for pastries and mingling. Anto was not mingling during this time, but getting ready upstairs. At 10:30 Antonietta appeared at the doorway on her father's arm, where her two best friends stretched a ribbon across the doorway.
Before proceeding, Anto cut the ribbon signifying her departure from her family's home to her new life with Tino. At that point we all followed her in our cars down into the center of the village. We parked about 1/2 mile away from the church and we followed Anto and her father through the center of town down the middle of the street all the way to the church. We were like a parade and people were hanging out of the doors and windows of the buildings to watch us pass. When we got to the church Tino was already inside, but all of Tino's family and friends were standing outside the church waiting. Anto and her father went in first and the rest of us followed her in down the aisle.The ceremony was like normal, and then we mingled outside the church for a while before heading over to the reception site.
We arrived at 2:30 (after getting lost on country roads along the way--thank GOD we were being driven around by some of Anto's Italian friends, or we would probably still be wandering around lost in the country) to appetizers and cocktails set up under the trees of a beautiful garden. Florence and I filled our plates and were munching away, when an Italian warned us about going too fast. Apparently we didn't know what we were in for with the amount of food that was to come. After the cocktails, we moved inside to be seated for the dinner.3 pasta dishes, 8 seafood dishes, lemon sorbetto, 4 meat dishes, salad, fruit, and wine
over 9 HOURS! In between courses there was dancing, walking, visiting. It was incredible. We thought it would never end. And these were full-sized dishes! One of the pasta dishes was a square of lasagna, a fish dish was an ENTIRE fish, a meat d
ish was a piece of veal with peas. The music was all traditional folk music from the region--LOTS of polka, and the occasional YMCA. When we thought we could not take anymore, we all shepherded outside for the cake-cutting. Anto and Tino popped an ENORMOUS bottle of champagne, cut the cake, toasted, and 
then behind them the fireworks began! Fireworks! Like the 4th of July! They lasted for about 15 minutes, we went back inside to eat the cake, and then came back outside to wander in the garden with appetizer-sized desserts again--eclaires, panne cotta, pastries, etc, etc. By the time we made it back to the Bed and Breakfast at 12:30 am we were exhausted and our feet were killing us. An entire day of high heels, ouchy ouchy. 
THe next day Flo and I left for the Amalfi coast. Anto's brother picked us up at 11:30 to drive us back the hour to the train station where we had to wait for 2 hours because it was Sunday and the trains came infrequently. Finally we got to the station where we had to change and wait another 2 hours-- we were starving and NOTHING was open except a tobacco shop where we each bought 1/2 of an awful ham and cheese sandwich and a bag of chips. We arrived in Naples around 8 pm and changed to another train. At 9:30 pm we arrived in Vico Equense where we had to take another bus to our B&B. We finally arrived at the top of the hill at 10:30 where we were supposed to then call the B&B to come pick us up from there. Flo's phone had died that morning because she brought the wrong charger, and luck of lucks--mine wasn't working. We looked around the empty plaza, in the dark, hungry, tired, frustrated, and wondered what we were going to do. There were 2 older women sitting on a porch looking at us curiously, so I summoned up the courage to go and ask if there was a public phone nearby. They indicated across the plaza. We dragged our suitcases across the cobblestone steps to the phone and started trying to decipher the Italian instructions.
Suddenly, as if from heaven, a woman appeared with a pre-paid phone card and told us (in Italian) that this phone didn't take coins, so we should use her card. We molto-grazie'd her profusely and then proceeded to do something incorrectly. Thankfully she was still waiting just in case, and came back to help. We got through this time to the B&B and a delightful gentleman who didn't speak a word of English answered the phone. I did my best to explain the situation in Italian, and then he said a whole lot of things back--something about 5 or 10 kilometers. All I could say was "aspettiamo qui?" (we wait here?) and then he would say a whole lot of things again with 5 to 10 km.. and I would say "ok, so, aspettiamo qui?" Finally I looked at the angel woman who was still standing by and just handed her the phone. She said "ok.. ok.. ok.. ciao signore," then looked at us and indicated that we follow her. She marched us up the narrow street to a bar, set us up with a couple of espressos and said that our signore would be coming to get us.
Finally a lovely gentleman with rosy cheeks walked in, paid for our espressos,
and drove us to the B&B--Vincenzo was his name, and he was the owner of La Ginestra, the agriturismo. He was so good to us and patient, and we were somehow able to communicate with him speaking slowly, clearly, and very loudly in Italian, and me doing my best to say what little I could, mix in some Spanish, and invent the rest (I acted a few things out too). He fed us dinner, sat with us while we ate, (Flo has a great photo of him and I deep in conversation with our respective Italian-English dictionaries), walked us to our room, gave us hugs and kisses, and called us his adopted daughters.I have more stories to tell and pictures to share, but this post is already long, and I am writing from my friend Etel's apartment in Switzerland. If I get a chance to post more while I'm here, I will, otherwise after I get back, I'll finish and include pictures too!
Love to everyone!
2 comments:
sounds like a TRUE adventure!! I've been eagerly awaiting some news from you. Can't wait for more, and picutes. LOVE YOU!
Oh Caity,
We should have known that there would be an adventure to tell about your travels and knowing how little Italian you speak this was pretty impressive!
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