#79: Buona Pasqua and Italian Sushi
Buona Pasqua from Lucca!
It has been a big week for Italy. Of course we have had Easter, and my favourite Italian celebration of Pasquetta. More on that in a moment.
But then we've also had the news about Papa Francesco. I was shopping in Esselunga yesterday morning with the kids (mayhem) and they held a minute's silence at the time that the funeral was on. I spent the entire 60 seconds trying to explain in a whisper to two preschoolers why they had to be quiet, who the pope was, and, most challengingly, what a pope even is.
And then on an ever so slightly more personal level, we said arrivederci to David for somewhere between two and three weeks as he left for a work trip back to Australia. I hesitate to put an exact number on it, after the furore that I created last time...
The weather is amazing here at the moment, and as has been the case for the past few weeks, I am still suffering from intense hayfever. I have had no luck with Italian antihistamines yet. I live in hope that at some point one of them will work, but at least I know that at worst I will only have to survive until Dave returns from Melbourne with a sack full of extra-strength Telfast for me.
Google tells me that the active ingredient in Telfast is available for sale here in Italy too, but apparently all the farmacie in Lucca are conspiring to keep the stuff out of my hands.
One of my favourite things about Easter here in Lucca is how much fun we have combining all of the different cultures of our friendship group together to celebrate. The Easter egg hunt, for example, is not a thing in Italy. But for me it is a non-negotiable. Luckily we have a small army of foreign friends who agree, and so the past two years have featured a horde of non-Italian children rampaging around one of the town's parks on a hunt the weekend before Easter. While the Italian parents and children look on, completely bemused.
This year it was raining, but as we aren't made of sugar (as Raffy loves to say) we braved the elements anyway. It was a blast.
We then had Easter lunch with some friends who are also living here without family, and ate hot cross buns (which were new for Italians and Americans alike), colomba, lamb, lasagne, and a lot of chocolate.
Pasquetta is the Italian name for Easter Monday. Here, it is the day for a trip to nature for a BBQ with friends. Unfortunately David had to work, so I took the kids to a very quiet stretch of coastline near Pisa and we spent the morning running around on the sand. We then ate a rather non-traditional lunch of sushi before coming home for a big rest.
Japanese is this family's "guilty" pleasure. Italian food is obviously fantastic, but honestly we do miss other flavours. Outside the major cities in Italy, things become monocultural very quickly. All-you-can-eat sushi restaurants are pretty much the only Asian cuisine to have made it here with any impact. These restaurants are often in big, warehouse-style buildings on the outskirts of town.
At first we avoided them, as the concept was kind of terrifying, but after a few months we relented. Now, having worked our way around the many offerings on the periphery of Lucca, we have found a couple of places that serve up a delicious offering of mostly Giapponese and Cinese dishes.
The extra benefit for us is that kids under 12 are half price, and under 3 eat for free. This amuses me, as Leo probably puts away more than the average adult. We almost always get asked to confirm that he is, in fact, only two years old. Which is fair, as he is the size of your average five year old here.
But rules are rules, and I intend to make the most of this loophole until his birthday in mid-June.
Lots and lots of love and hugs, as always!
Kate
