Day 6, Italy

"We'll eat again."

Man oh man oh man... You people would not BELIEVE how much food we're eating over here. It's all so good, and it's all so much! We went to Maria Rita's and Mauro's house today, a huge house on a hill, two towns away from Casorzo. First, some kind of cheesy spread on red cabbage leaves. Then some kind of roasted pepper thing. Then some minestrone soup. Then the roast beef and potatoes. And throughout all this, we were drinking all kinds of local wines. Red wine, white wine, sweet dessert wine (geez I didn't even mention the dessert--crazy chocolate pudding stuff with amaretto)-- Then out came the fancy liquors. About five different kinds of grappa, including one with real 23 karat gold flakes in it that you just drink... Like, oh, ok, I'm drinking gold, la-di-da...
And that was just lunch.
Gramma and I came back to Francesca's house and took a nice long afternoon nap, only to be awakened by Laura, another cousin of mine, who was here to take us to her house for dinner. I won't get into it with the food... This time it was all very casual, just Laura and her parents at their house in Casorzo, which is basically their weekend home, since they live in Torino most of the time. So there was lots of commotion as they bumbled around the small kitchen looking for things like a ladle and shot glasses. Laura speaks English really well, but her parents don't speak it at all, so she was working double duty, doing a lot of translating... but the good thing was that I was able to really share a lot with her about who we are and what we do and what kind of things we're into. I'm hoping to meet up with Laura again when we get to Torino on the opera tour. I'm also hoping to come back to Italy on my own someday after having properly learned some Italian! I must sign up for a class somewhere... (And of course, I said the same thing about Flemish when I was in Belgium, German when I was in Germany and Austria, Swedish when I was in Sweden... Ok, I have a pretty good life.)
So I think at this point I've met most of the cousins. I'll post photos of everyone with names to match on the Flickr page. Tomorrow we're going to a restaurant at 1pm with a group of 20 of us! It'll be the grand finale of the weekend, with the most people, the most food, and the most drink. I have a feeling all of this so far has just been a warm-up.
A few things I've noticed in Italy:
1. You simply don't know how to pace yourself when eating, because it's impossible to know how many more courses are coming.
2. There's something about placing bread directly on the table, or rather, on the tablecloth. Gramma has been a little bothered by this, feeling like they should be slicing bread over plates. But instead, they just slice it directly over the table, or place a handful of breadsticks directly on the table next to each person's plate. I'm not sure what this is all about, why they don't care if the table ends up full of breadcrumbs, but anyway, it's pretty cool.
3. One nice thing about hanging out with my Italian family is that they make me feel very tall! No offense, Mom, but I can see how you fit in (literally) with this side of the family! Hugging these old ladies is just like hugging you! So it makes it feel all the more like real family.

I'm seriously not happy about having to leave here. I've heard Prague is very beautiful, but it's going to have to be really really something to be able to top this experience in Casorzo. One thing to look forward to for sure, though, is the upcoming opera tour. Not that I'm starving for opera, but I love the way it makes Gramma come to life. She's really been running at full speed here with the family, speaking Italian all day, and trying to keep up with all the food and drink. And even though these people do everything to make us feel welcome and at home here, Gramma still feels more at home in an opera house. So anyway, lots more good stuff to come. But I'm SO coming back to Casorzo someday....