Even though we were not at home with our families this Easter holiday, Stephen, Michelle and I celebrated the holiday in traditional Italian style. We started with Catholic mass at the town church at 10am. A friend joined us and we walked over at 9:30 and by the time we had found seats, the place started filling up. The inside of the church is what you would imagine from gothic churches--lots of paintings, decorations, statues, etc. The place is huge, too--but the high ceilings make it seem even bigger. By the end of the service, there was a few hundred people sitting and standing in all the church. Afterwards we got a caffe then came back home to open our Italian Easter egg! These things are so popular--mostly for kids, but also for adults. On Saturday I bought an adult egg; the kids' eggs have toys and games inside the hollow egg, but in ours you could win bigger prizes more suitable for older people. In ours, as you can see, we got a green book light which is pretty suitable for our household!
We spent the rest of the day with some friends watching movies and enjoying candy from the kids' Easter egg hunt. We also played some games and had lunch. Later that night I (alone! the sole person who wanted to partake in the traditional Italian dessert!) had a slice of la Colomba cake. Cecilia, my Italian friend, told me about this cake last week, so when I picked up our Easter egg, I also bought this cake. It is not the same kind of cake we would expect, but it was okay!
Happy Easter to everyone and I hope all my friends and family were able to remember the reason for the holiday in the midst of all the candy and food!