Easter Rites

I love coming to Taranto at Easter.  It's super festive and they have a unique tradition, apparently dating back to the time of the Spanish Dominion of this area.  The Easter Rites are, I'll admit, a little strange, but the people here love them, and it makes it fun to be out with the crowds, experiencing a local tradition.

Posters all over the city advertise the Holy Week festivities:

At 3pm on Thursday, the "perdoni" or sinners (I like to call them the KKK men for obvious reasons), come out of the church.  I don't know how many there are, maybe 40?  They wander through the city, sometimes in an orderly fashion, sometimes randomly, visiting different churches.  Perhaps searching for Jesus?  Not really sure.  Kind of cool, but also kind of creepy.

That night, the Madonna (Virgin Mary) leaves another church, looking for Jesus.  She is carried on the backs of some very wealthy and "generous" men, who apparently pay tens of thousands of dollars for the honor.  She also parades through the streets, at an excruciatingly slow pace all night, until she retires back into the church the next morning.  This year was unique because it rained all night and into the morning, so they had to spend much of the night scurrying into nearby buildings and then emerging when the rain stopped.  When we caught up to her on Friday morning, she was emerging from a residential building. 

Matteo was surely interested in the procession.  La Nonna took him to get a front row view.  He hasn't been that captivated/stunned, maybe ever.  He just looked at all the passing perdoni with a confused look on his face.  Several of them stopped to grab his hand (which he promptly withdrew) or to allow a photo op. 

 

 

 



 

Friday night is the final procession.  It lasts about 15 hours (again, they move at an excruciatingly slow pace) and starts out of this church.  Fabio and I arrived as the procession was emerging.  It consists of seven (I think) statues of the passion of Christ, along with dozens of perdoni. Apparently, the statues are really old, some dating back to the 17th century. This is a huge affair, with TV cameras, reporters and thousands of bystanders present.    

After fighting the crowds for a while, we noticed a cafe on the second story of an adjacent building to the piazza.  It had a full window with empty tables next to it.  We decided to go up and get some snacks and drinks and enjoy a warmer, more relaxed view.  Next time we come, I'm going straight there!  Awesome view and awesome food.  This is the view from our table.  Why no one else was there is still puzzling me!

 

This final procession finished in the same church this morning.  When we woke up around 8, we watched it end on TV.  Those guys had been out all night, walking about 1/10 of a mile an hour for 15 hours carrying that heavy statue on their soldiers.  They looked pretty exhausted.  I hope it was worth their $20,000 (or so).  The Rites are over now and tomorrow is the big day of the Resurrection, which seems to be less of a focus here than his death and suffering, but perhaps it is because I don't understand what is said at Mass.  We are going to Mass tomorrow, and I'm going to have Fabio do some translating.  Happy Easter, everyone!

Il Nonno e Lo Zio a Rimini

We survived our first 5 days in Italy.  I really should say, we survived the flights getting here.  Wowzers.  Traveling with a toddler is WORK.  Seriously.  Being a parent of a toddler on a 10 hour flight is worthy of some kind of medal.  Considering we were trapped in a crowded tube for such a long time, Matteo really did well.  He is only 20 months, so we saved ourselves $1000 dollars and didn't buy him a ticket.  He sat/slept on our laps and actually wasn't too restless.  We walked around a bit, we put him in the baby bjorn and walked around a bit.  He watched some videos on our tablet and read some books.  He slept about 3 hours and when we arrived in Frankfurt, he was fine.  Actually, I think he was a little stunned.  We had an hour layover and we had to go through the passport check, change terminals, which meant going through security again.  I strapped him in the baby bjorn so I could just run as fast as I could and so I think he was confused by the sprinting and bouncing up and down as we literally raced to catch our flight.  Sadly, we missed it and had to wait 3 hours for the next flight.  Matteo really was great through all the chaos.  Considering he only slept 3 hours through the night, he happily ran around a bit, played with some toys I brought and enjoyed people watching.  When we finally arrived in Venice, he crashed in the carseat and slept all the way to Rimini, a three hour drive.

When we arrived in Rimini, he was greeted by Il Nonno (Fabio's dad), Ada (Fabio's dad's wife) and Zio Ugo (Fabio's brother) and Zia Valentina (Fabio's brother's longtime girlfriend).  He went to all of them willingly, smiling and playing with them and basking in the attention.  They thought he was the cutest thing, kissing him relentlessly and trying to get him to say "nonno," which he did and has been saying it about 1000 times a day since that first day.

We spent 2 days in Rimini.  We ate a few 5 course meals together, visited a mall (it rained the whole time we were there) ate some gelato and visited a toy store and bought lots of books and toys.  This boy is definitely loved and spoiled! 

The Ambrosio men, including Matteo's cousin dog, Toki.

Fabio and his dad

Dinner at Ugo's house

Playing "Peek A Boo" with Nonno

Bonding with his Toki

Playing horsie with Nonno

Matteo has been SUUUUPER picky since being here.  We did mange to cojole him into eating some ice cream.  Oh joy.

More bonding with Toki

Like Nonno, like grandson

Exploring the mall with Lo Zio

Feeding Zio Ugo ice cream

Oh joy.  Second ice cream of the day.

Saying goodbye in front of Il Nonno's house.

University of Washington

We spent the morning exploring the UW campus.  We knew Matteo would love the wide open spaces and grass.  We got lucky and even found some birdies to chase, stairs to climb and Matteo's newest discovery, bike racks to walk through!  What could be more fun that this combination!?  It was cloudy and chilly, but there were few people out and the quiet made for a peaceful morning excursion.  In a few weeks the tree buds will be in full pink bloom and then we'll definitely have to go back!

Birdie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Notice the arm outstretched to ensure accurate pointing:

Taking a little rest.  Chasing birds is hard work!

A Seattle Weekend

A perfect weekend is a weekend spent outdoors in the sunshine in America's most beautiful city:

(I put the following picture because you can see Mt. Rainier behind SafeCo Field.)

No weekend is complete without a little Amico Orsetto (Italian Teddy Bear) and Wii time with Papa'.