Day 6 – Sunday August 15th

Today is Fair Augusto or fair of August. It happens over the weekend. Tat’s Mom told me that it is the celebration of the ascension of the Madonna. They celebrate by having a procession through town, like a parade, and line the street with candles and have decorative windows and such. Unfortunately it was cancelled due to bad weather.

We took a little walk/shopped around town for a bit. The stores are just not really my style. Some stuff is cute, but a lot of it is a bit too kitschy for me. Her cousin Melissa wears a lot of glittery tee shirts with Disney characters and such on them. It’s different than I would have imagined. They have a ton of jeans, all skinny and some of them are all right but most of them have a different look to them even though they’re 80+ euros. The shoes are pretty typical too. Some of the tennis shoes are cute in a European sort of way.

At 1:00 we had lunch with everyone. It was a special lunch because ChiChi, Umberto, Melissa, Sergio, and Greta are all leaving to go back to Modena and it is feraugusto. We started off the meal with tortellini, which traditionally is made stuffed with meats, not cheese like in America, in broth. Tat’s aunt – Zia – Lucana – made each tortellini by hand and made the broth out of the meatloaf drippings and such. It was very good. After soup we had meat; I had some meatloaf, some other type of beef and then I tried Zomboni – which is bratwurst type mixed meat. It is very gelatinous and cased in fat. I had to try it but I wouldn’t eat it again. It just helped solidify my theory that America is not fat due solely to food consumption, but to lifestyle. We’re lazy and entitled and don’t walk and don’t care. We also had salsa verde, mashed potatoes, pepperonato, which is a mixture of yellow, red and green peppers with some juices. There was also homemade mayonnaise, which they eat by the spoonful.

After lunch Tat and I walked around and she showed me some of the town and then we sat in the park. Tomorrow is the marcato. The town closes down from 1:00-4:00 for a break time, known as siesta in Spain, is a time for them to rest after lunch and slowdown and enjoy life. The market subsequently closes down at 1:00 too but for good. I really have learned how much music is an international thing. They play American music all the time. Greta was signing and humming Mamma Mia all through Lunch and she’s 6. It is funny to be walking around and hear people singing “Hey Soul Sister” but not know exactly what they are saying or understand maybe. It really shows you how Music is an American thing that the world had adopted to a degree, we have yet to see a universal non-English singer/star.