Roncone -Days 4 and 5 08/15, 08/16

Sunday was a holiday in Italy (celebrating the Ascension of Mary I think) and Roncone celebrated by a special mass followed by a procession in which they take out all the church regalia and lead the attendees around the town while going through “Hail Marys” (again I think this is what was going on as they did this all in Italian). There was another lottery in the square and we won a skateboard, a child’s play pen, and a whole array of useless gadgets (I think Gramma got a pack of straws). We benevolently passed on these goodies to kids in the family because we’re good cousins. We then ate at Diana’s pizza place again and I moved on from just artichoke to artichoke, mushrooms, and ham. Aww aren’t I growing up.

The day started off pretty and that lasted until about lunch. After a nap at the hotel we walked about a block of the mile to the piazza before we realized the rain was just getting worse and we trudged back to the hotel. That night we had cancelled dinner plans at the hotel because they were making special town-made polenta (a heated ground corn meal with various spices and specks of meat thrown in). With the rain though we were out of luck and ended up huddled in a friends living room with about 6 other friends and family, showing old family pictures and making fun of each other. If I understood just a bit more Italian I might have come away with a blind date with her “best” grandson. As it was, when the rain let up we all went out to hear the town band play (in which he played) and see the status of polenta- making (which was postponed until Monday.) After being devoted fans for about a half hour we all split up with our goodies and went home. Gramma and I contented ourselves on a dinner of fries, which, after all the food we’ve had to eat in the past week, was pretty awesome.





Monday all we did was hang out with family in Tione. Got to meet two large (came up to my hip large) German Shepherds; and then we all watched Flipper in Italian. It’s been raining off and on every day since we got here which makes sitting by the lake and reading while working on my tan kind of impossible. Instead there’s a lot of eating, sleeping, and gossiping with the Italian fambam. Which is just as fun as I’m learning a lot about my family.