Sunday in the Eternal City and Sundry Digressions

     I am settling in in Candia. Today I just casually rolled out of bed a little before nine, and was out the door with a roommate at 10:15. We booked it to the Vatican and just barely made it in time for the start of the 10:30 Latin Mass. I'm rather proud of myself for being able to walk the long cobblestone streets in heels without any substantial inconvenience. It's certainly doable, but it's not terribly comfortable and you have to pay attention to where you're stepping. Don't step in the grooves or the grates, lest you get your heels stuck.
     Back to Mass: the First Reading was in Italian (I think), the Second in German, the Gospel and Homily in Italian, and the Prayer of the Faithful was in Italian, Spanish, French, German, and English. There might have been Portugese somewhere, but I'm not sure.
     Because there were so many priests, bishops, and/or cardinals, Communion distribution went rather quickly without lay ministers. (I do not like having lay ministers giving out Communion at Mass, but let's not go there now.)

     Here in Italy, everybody dries their clothes outside thier windows on lines. It's really funny to see; it makes me think of Aladdin. That's how they do it, though. Most people don't have dryers. Hang-drying things can be really inconvenient, though, when you've just washed a lot of things. I did a medium-sized load of wash by hand, and one of my roommates did the same. In order to dry it, we had to use two lines out the kitchen window, one line in the bedroom, and then find other random places in the apartment for the rest of it. I'm just glad it's all dry now and that I no longer have to duck under a forest of laundry in order to get to my bed.
     Ciambellas are really good. They're cream-filled doughnuts. The Nutella kind is obviously wonderful.
     The croissants here are different from the kind we have in the States. They're not as buttery. The ones in the hotel Alma Domus at Siena were very good.
     I like cappucino and macchiato. The coffee here comes in smaller portions, but I feel that you really don't "need" as much here because it's stronger. And when you get it in a cafe, you don't get the cardboard cups to take away like at Starbucks. You either sit down or stand at the counter, and you are given glass dishes (often with the cafe's name on them) and you leave them there (or you put them together and in a place on the counter where the dude can take them back and wash them). Very different from America.
     The bread isn't as fluffy and moist here. Italians don't seem to like moist breads or baked anything. They also don't like to have really sweet stuff, either, other than gelato. Speaking of which, there was this gelato place in Siena near the Piazza del Campo which had REALLY COOL displays. They heaped up the gelato and decorated it with the fruits and things that are used to flavor it.
     I like Italian  wine better than California wine. It tastes smoother and less alcohol-y. It's also a lot cheaper to buy wine here than it is to buy wine at home. The most expensive bottle I saw at the grocery store yesterday was about 4 Euro. That's less than eight dollars! Butter, however, is more expensive here. And other stuff I can't think of.
     Grocery shopping is a little different where produce is concerned. You DON'T touch it with your bare hands. You either use plastic gloves or you use the plastic bag as a glove. Then you bring the food (only put into a bag one kind of produce) to a scale, enter the code that's on the basket where you got it, take the sticker that prints out, and put that on the bag. It's a little more complicated than shopping at home.
     Italian food at Italian restaurants doesn't taste quite like Italian food in America (of course, there's the whole Sicily thing). Pizza here is better, in my opinion, as is bruschetta. And I've not tasted a lot of garlic.

     We've heard rather a lot of English-language songs being played in the stores here. It's weird. I heard the Goo-Goo Dolls and Bon Jovi being played at this elegant leather-stuff-store that we went into to search for a new wallet for my roommate. It's called Carpisa, and there are adorable little turtles on the wallets and suitcases.

    And that's the end of my ramblings for now. Next I need to try to put up pictures and dig up my journal entries from last week so I can tell you all about Pilgrimage.