Lovely 8AM wakeup followed by the walk to church. Now, for those of you who know me personally, I am Jewish (Ebrea), though traditional at the best of times. I joined my host-parents at mass this morning completely voluntarily - not only as a gesture of respect and interest toward their culture and religion, but also out of simple curiosity on my own part.
The church, decorated with half-recovered paintings of Christ and his besties and frienemies, was quaint. The priest/vicar/equivalentofRabbi was about 80 years old and shook while praying (I think out of arthritus rather than religious vigour). [Don't get me wrong, I am not being critical of Catholicism, this particular church, or this particular prabbi.] I just found the whole experience uncomfortable - the kneeling and the crossing and the clasping of hands and the likes... I can't believe I'm saying this, but I seriously miss Judaism. I miss the Friday nights surrounded by family and friends. I miss the food. A LOT. (Not that Italian food is all that bad, don't get me wrong.) I miss the tradition and the warmth of Judaism in my home that I have been brought up with. I am going to start my investigations into visiting Milan to join a shabbat, or perhaps Passover in April.
After church, I ditched the fam and went walking up to Citta D'alta (The upper city of Bergamo) for a lunch and photog mission. Having been forced to listen to innumerous facts in Italian about the 60 churches in the area, I opted to visit numerous caffes, restaurants, shops, chocolaterie, gelaterie, and such... Be in for picture ops or for the name-sake of said place.
The first thing on the agenda was to visit the Caffe Funiculare - the resident caffe next door to the funicular. (that's one of those slanted lifts, for those of you who don't know Clifton...) This caffe has a view of the entire lower city - all rooftops and trees covered in snow: When family and friends come to visit, THIS is where I will take them for coffee :)
(I was SERIOUSLY impressed that i could order, request sweetener, pay the bill, all in Italian.)
I did not account for the fact that up-top would be 5 degrees colder than in Bergamo centre, so, freezing my ass off, my outdoor missions were made short and sweet.
One last memoir for the day, and no matter how I describe this, with no photo (not relevant to the one above), I cannot do it justice. You see, Italians take their dogs EVERYWHERE. Restaurants, clothing stores (Yes, the fancy ones, too!), caffes, public transport... and in winter in Italy, its expected that the pooches also get donned in the warmest and most fashionable of winter outfits. This morning, I saw what was a cruel event - a chiwawa (serves him right for being more rat-like than canine) literally balancing its whole body on its front legs while defacating on the snow - the poor (hideous) thing (creature) couldn't deal with the cold. It looked like something out of Cirque Du Soleil, I swear. I walked past canning myself. Shame, though. (But not really.)
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