Buona Pasqua 2008!

What a difference a year makes. Last year we had just moved into our apartment and were just getting to know our neighborhood and the center of Roma as well. This year we know our neighborhood like the back of our hand. We've got a friendly relationship with our fishmonger, butcher and our fruit and veggie vendors, whom we routinely visit every Saturday morning. They've come to know that we suck at the language but we are trying our best. For example, at the fruit and veggie stand I asked for "basilicA" which means "large church" when I meant to ask for "basilicO" which means "basil". Of course she knew what I meant but we all had a nice laugh at my expense after I corrected myself. At least I didn't say any curse words on accident!

Last year on Easter we had a couple friends over and we had an all-day drinking and eating binge in which we went through quite a respectable number of bottles of wine and nearly an entire lamb. This year we were invited to Easter lunch by a friend I met at the pub. Brian happens to be American from California but more interestingly he is a priest (not really uncommon in Roma!). So we accepted the invite to have lunch at his house (more like a very large dorm with a chapel) with about 12 other priests from all over the world. Not being Catholic, or religious and having basically never entered a church in my life except for a few weddings and as a tourist in Roma it was a bit strange but how often does one get offered such a chance? We put on our Easter best and met him and the other priests and had a very nice typical Italian Easter lunch ie. antipasti, primi of pasta, secondi of lamb followed by a piece of cake which is then followed by a piece of fruit.

After lunch we headed toward the center of town to have a beer but the skies opened up and dumped rain on us before we could even make it to some sort of shelter. Even with umbrellas we were completely soaked up to our waists because of the pouring sideways rain. Also Rome doesn't exactly have great drainage systems so if it rains for more the 10 minutes you end up walking through giant puddles. At this point we were verging on miserable so we thanked Brian and decided to part ways because we knew there were a number of buses near where we were that could take us home, yet another example of a what a difference a year makes! Happy Easter.