Birthday Pumpkins

I definitely had a different birthday experience today than what I am accustomed to. Usually, I get woken up by my parents and siblings singing “Happy Birthday” at the top of their lungs and carrying some kind of present. After that I go to the kitchen and have a great meal of bacon and eggs with cream cheese and chives. I then take off to school, which is better than usual just because of people acknowledging you just a little bit more. After school I would usually go to football practice (considering my birthday is in the middle of the season) and have a better than usual practice. I would then probably go home and be enchanted by the delicious aroma of some homemade lasagna about to be served for me. Yum.


Today, though, was pretty different. It was a weekend, so that takes school out of the picture. But still, I had not set my alarm, so therefore I woke up to a silent house. I went to shower, downstairs to have some breakfast (more like two small sugar cookies and a glass of water), and then was happy to see some nice e-cards in my inbox. As far as I could see, I was essentially alone in the house. Oscar had been in Udine for a dentistry conference, Cristina was at Osvaldo’s soccer game, Ana (the resident household helper) had her day off and was probably out in Vicenza, and Giuditta and Maria were not to be found. They were probably upstairs in their room. Without much to do, and feeling a bit glum, I went to my room and started doing some homework. After being in there for over an hour, I decided to go downstairs and go outside. It was a beautiful, clear day and I could see the bell tower of St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice way off on the horizon. Then Giuditta came out of the house saying, “Tanti auguri”. She said that Oscar had arrived and that Cristina and Osvaldo were on their way back home. She said that we were going to be visiting a nearby town to attend their “Festa di Zuccha”, or “Pumpkin Festival”. Actually, at the time, I thought that it was a carrot festival, because of a bit of prior confusion. A few days before, Ana had served me some orange soup and called it “zuppa di zuccha”. I asked her what zuccha was, and since she speaks zero English, she started to describe it. She said that it was orange and “largo cosi” (This long), putting her hands up in the air about a foot and a half. Her choice of the word “long” as opposed to “big” or “large” made me think she was talking about carrots, when really she meant pumpkin. I guess my palate is not good enough to distinguish the main ingredient in the meal which I have had at least six or seven times while I have been here.

Anyhow, once the whole family had arrived, they all said “Auguri” and we climbed into Oscar’s Fiat minivan and Maria came out of the house and handed me a large bag. “Wow,” I thought, “they got me a present, how nice.” I looked inside, and pulled out a very cool briefcase for my computer. When I was shopping for a computer, I made the bad decision of choosing the largest laptop I could find, making it near to impossible to find a briefcase to carry it in. This one was big enough though. Cristina then told me to open the outside pocket. I could not imagine that there was anything else in there, since the thing weighed about what I would expect it to. I opened the pocket anyhow and found a small slip of paper. I looked at it, and it was the confirmation page from a flight booking! It read, “Venice-Budapest: 11-Dec-2010; Budapest-Venice 14-Dec-2010.” I guess I will be spending some time in Hungary! Cristina said that we would go and see the Christmas lights there, which apparently are spectacular.

Five minutes later, we arrived at a nearby town and made our way to the church, which is always the in the center of town and the center for most social gatherings as well, including this one. There was a large tent set up in the parking lot, and we went inside and sat down with some people my host family knows and whose son plays soccer with Osvaldo. The waitress then came and set a plate in front of each of us. It was actually kind of smaller than what I expected for a full lunch, but I was not going to complain. On the plate there were two thin slices of a kind of salami-ish looking meat and pumpkin polenta. On the side was a slice of toasted bread that looked like garlic bread, yet was made out of pumpkin. I was finished with that and thought I would probably have to eat some more upon arriving home. But then to my surprises came the second course, a bowl of rice with a pumpkin sauce and pumpkins chunks. This was followed by a bowl of pumpkin soup like the one we had eaten at home. After that came the main plate: some turkey beside stewed pumpkins. After that they served us pumpkin bread for dessert. Outside they were selling pumpkins and zucchinis, some about eight feet long. I thought to myself, “I don’t need to eat anything anymore when I get home. Also, I’m done with pumpkins for a few weeks.”

I then started receiving some phone calls from parents and grandparents. This was nice, considering I had not spoken with my family since the night I had arrived here in Italy almost two weeks ago. It did take a long time though. By the time I was done, it was time to go to church, which was a lot shorter than last week, probably because there was not a priest leaving.

When we got back home just about two hours ago, we started to have a dinner of bread, cheese, and a chocolate cake Giuditta had made. Overall, it was a good day. It feels good to be seventeen.