Holy Week Procession in Marsala

Ciao!

I hope everyone had a fantastic Easter, although no matter how hard you try, I doubt it was as good as mine. I have so much to share and tell, so I'll get started right away, but as a warning, this may be a long blog. Also, pictures from my week in Marsala are already up at www.dropshots.com/sebrock. If you don't ever look at any pictures, I would at least say you have to see the ones from the Maundy Thursday procession. Ok, back to the task:

Clay and I left right after school last Wednesday to head to Marsala for the rest of the week and weekend. The whole purpose of the trip was to visit Michelle and Jay, the nicest couple you could ever possibly know, and I swear I'm not saying that just because Michelle reads the blog. We had met Michelle at Babilonia back in February and we instantly hit it off. Michelle and Jay are American, but they have lived in Marsala for the past year for Jay's job. They have a gorgeous house, with two guest bedrooms, complete with fluffy pillows and boxsprings (the difference between a box spring and no box spring is really noticeable, and it was nice to be in a big bed with a boxspring!). Anyways, that's probably a sufficient introduction for now. Hopefully you can pick up more through my descriptions.

So we arrived late Wednesday evening to the Palermo airport. We took a bus from Taormina to Messina, then a train from Messina to Palermo, and then another train from Palermo Central Station to the airport, where Michelle picked us up in the car. We had a wonderful pasta dinner complimented by an olive oil cake! By the way, if you are hungry right now, you probably shouldn't read this blog until later. We had a great time with food and wine this week, so I'd hate to make you jealous.

Thursday morning started off great. We had biscuits and gravy for breakfast!!! For more than two months I have had nothing but stale cereal or a piece of bread for breakfast. I've already told you how much I miss an American breakfast, so to be treated everyday to amazing breakfast food was a real treat. On top of that, I'm not a gravy person, but I loved Michelle's gravy. After our breakfast, we headed into Marsala.

First we stopped in at a winery. I have the name written down back at the house, but have since forgotten it, so I'll fill it in tomorrow. Anyways, Michelle teaches private English lessons, and her student, Erika, works at this winery. She needs to practice giving tours and tastings in English, so we were her guinea pigs! She is actually quite good at English and was pretty easy to understand. She explained the process to us, and showed us around. Then we did an actual tasting, which was loads of fun as well.

We then actually walked around Marsala. Marsala is an adorable town, and it was nice to get a break from the tourists. It is definitely larger than Taormina. We stopped in and saw the fish market where they buy their fish. We don't ever go to the weekly market here in Taormina because we don't cook, so we have no use for that, so it was really fun to get to see a real fish market. We then had lunch at these great restaurant with several other American couples who they know from Jay's job. One of the ladies had made everyone cupcakes and colored eggs for us! It was so exciting to get a little touch of an American Easter! Plus that cupcake was delicious. I ate triglie, which are fish, for lunch, and it was also excellent.

After lunch we lined up for the Maundy Thursday procession. The locals do this procession every year, and it's really an act of love and devotion for them. They walk around town, re-enacting scenes from the Easter story. Actually, they start the procession a little before that and show a few scenes of Jesus preaching. Many of the people in the procession don't wear shoes, and they walk around town all afternoon like that! Like I said, it's act of love. There were a few scenes that were acted out right in front of us. If you see the pictures, you get a better idea. It was all in Italian, obviously, so there are a few pictures where I can't really identify the person in the picture because I didn't pay enough attention. But I believe we saw Pontius Pilate asking for Barabas. We also Jesus and the prostitute, and Jesus and the children. All but the first Jesus have on masks, and these masks are over 400 years old! After we saw the scenes of Jesus as a teacher and some of Pontius Pilate and the guards, then comes the bloody Jesus. This part was moving, and at times difficult to watch. I was pretty busy snapping photos, which was also difficult when I thought, gee, I'm just snapping a photo of Jesus getting whipped. They don't really whip him hard or anything. In fact, they really just shove him around and slap a little bit for the sound effect; however, the makeup people have done an excellent job, and he has incredible realistic scratches and bloodied whip marks on his body. It's also a bit surreal to realize that when he was beaten, it probably was in front of a huge crowd like this. Anyways, after this Jesus comes another one, and this time they put the cross on him. That part was pretty dramatic too as we could hear the band behind him playing this sad song. Walking behind Jesus are a bunch of mourners and people wailing. The whole thing really seemed a bit real. In fact, if it weren't for the masks, it would have seemed really real.

Besides the main characters, there are also lots of little children and older people. Many of the older people hold the rosary while they walk. They also had these girls that had huge headresses on, complete with gold and real gems. They were escorted by guards because their heads were really worth a lot of money. All in all, it was really incredible to watch, and a good start to the Holy Week.

That evening we just hung out and I learned how to play Guitar Hero III, which I am now addicted to. Thankfully I don't have a Guitar Hero to play, so I shouldn't waste too much time on it. We ate a wonderful meal of Chicken Marsala with some herb-roasted potatoes and Strawberry Tiramasu. I helped cooked the Marsala. Actually, I just watched and learned how to use a knife. Anyways, there will be plenty more about the cooking lessons and food tomorrow. The school is closing, so I have to cut this off, but I'll pick it up tomorrow and finish telling you about our trip. Ciao!