Religion. And Food.

I've noticed that whenever I make a new accuantence here that somewhere in our first conversation they ask me if I go to church, and when I answer yes,I used to when I was little, they seem to relax a little. Now this doesn't always happen, but usually...

Anyways... Today was the first communion of my little brother Davide!!!!!!!!!!!
I went to church and actually understood some of it with the help of my memories in english! There was a group of 50-ish kids who were all on the same boat, so they didn't even read a list of everyone included because it would take too long. The mass itself was just like in the U.S. as far as I can tell, except during the part where you shake hands with the people around you and wish them peace, here they spent more time shaking EVERYONE'S hand they could reach with a sincere "pace".
After mass was lunch.
O.K. here we go... we went to a fancy restaurant place...
Before we even sat down was the which is a time for everyone to eat some yummy finger-food and wine, and mingle. Then once we sat down the first antipasta was fish and shrimp on a bed of ratatouille,I, being a vegetarian had just a bigger serving of just the ratatouille (that, by the way was amazing!). Second was a piemontese meat dish that I don't know how to decribe because I don't know much about meat. I had an asparagus salad with pine nuts and pomegranate seeds.. that was hot... and delicious. Third was pasta... freshly made penne-like paasta that too had meat, so instead I ate a HEAVENLY pasta dish where the pasta was unlike anything I have ever seen! It was kind of like a gnocchi consistency, but not made with potatoes (and not icky like gnocchi) that was shaped kind of like little peapods... but not... and then it was with fresh tomatoes and oliveoil and basil. Simple, yet infused with the flavor of the Gods. I swear the tomatoes in Italy are just down right better than any tomatoe in any other country... I don't know how they do it...
Next was another pasta dish that is tipical piemontese too: Ravioli with spinach and cheese inside with a light cream sauce on top, which was delightful!
Then, before the main dish we had lemon sorbet,Which was served in a little champagne-type glass because it was frothy and light so you could drink it.
The main dish was a little steak-type-thing with roasted potatoes and cookied spinach, I justhad the potatoes and spinach, but I don't know how to comunicate to you how wonderfully happy I was to be eating slimy cooked spinach. The flavor! The Flavor!!!! Oh Jesus!
Desert was a giant tiramisu cake! This puppy was HUGE! It more closely resembled a pizza...
Lastly was coffee. But I haven't meantioned yet the beverages that went with this lunch! I had a glass for white wine and a glass for red wine, a water glass, and another little champagne-type glass for the special dessert wine we had with the tiramisu cake. I had the same dessertwine at easter and I LOVE it. If I ever develope a drinking problem it will be because of this wine.

The entirety of this eating parade lasted five hours... Oof. None of us ate dinner...

Oh!!! And guess what!!!???? two Thursdays ago when I went to Torino with a group of AFS kids and I went to the cinema museum I saw the origional hat of CHARLIE CHAPLIN!!! AND I saw the real diamond jewelry set of MARILYN MONROE!!! And also a pair of her shoes!!! And a sexy corset-like top of hers!!!! It was SO COOL!!! She had normal sized feet... I always assumed she had small dainty feet...

Alrighty! Ciao!