Anna and I left last Thursday. We were going to take a 7:30am bus out of Rome, but that didn't work out so well. We were there in plenty of time. Giuseppe took us to the bus station. A bus came at 7:30 and we asked Giuseppe if that was our bus, but he said no, that bus was going to Bari, so we believed him and waited and waited and waited for our bus to show up. I'm 99% sure that the bus that came was our bus!! So we had to wait until 9am until the main ticket office opened so that we could change our tickets to later that afternoon. We had to take the metro and come all the way back home, to go back to the bus station to get on a 3:30pm bus. We didn't get into Gravina until 9:40pm! Giuseppe's dad picked us up that night. We hit some traffic getting out of Gravina, which is hard to believe because it's a town of maybe 15,000 people, but that's the way our day was going. We finally got to Irsina around 10:15, changed our clothes, ate a quick dinner and headed into town for the festival. We walked up and down the main street and ran into some friends right away. Giuseppe's parents asked us to be home by 2am and I didn't understand why we had a curfew when in August, Francesco and I stayed out until 5, 6, 7am every night.
Friday morning at 9:30am, I understood. His parents woke us up to go to church with them. September 16th, Friday, was the main day of the festival. The church was packed with people, so Anna and I had to stand for the 1.5 hour service. It was a beautiful service, but we were hot, tired, and had a very hard time understanding everything since it was in Italian. We went home after church and had a HUGE lunch. Lasagna, steak, salad, prosciutto, sausage, mozzarella, nuts, fruit and cake...we were so full!! At 6pm that night was the procession of San Eufemia's arm. Lina (Giuseppe's mom) pushed her way through the crowd to get Anna and I up close so we could see what was going on. We processed for only a short time after learning that the procession lasts for 3.5 hours!
Saturday afternoon, Giuseppe arrived. He couldn't come earlier because his co-worker's sister got married and he had to work. We had another huge lunch after Giuseppe arrived, then he and Anna told his parents that they are engaged. His parents were very happy and immediately started brainstorming wedding details. We popped a bottle of champagne and celebrated the happy moment.
Saturday night, Anna, Giuseppe and I went to a concert in town. The band was a cover band for a famous Italian "love song" singer. They were very good! Right after the concert, was fireworks. They lasted for an hour...they were some of the best fireworks i've ever seen. The only problem was that they were shot off nearby and some ashes flew into the crowd. Later that night, we saw a girl at the bar wearing an eye patch because ashes had flown into her eye.
We finally made it to the rides Saturday night. They are called, giostre, in Italian, but all of our friends called them the "fun machines." Most of the rides were ones that spin and I did not want to get sick, so I didn't ride any. Anna, Giuseppe and I all played a game where we shot pellets to knock over objects...Anna and I won stuffed Hippos that we can take back to Rome as memorabilia. Anna and Giuseppe rode this ride:
Sunday, the three of us slept in until lunch time since we had stayed out until 5:30am. Day 3 of having a huge lunch. It never gets old though...Lina is a fantastic cook; I always miss her food when I go back to Rome. Giuseppe played soccer in Gravina that night, so we went to watch him play. His team won 16-10. It was my first soccer match that i've watched in person since arriving. The boys will start to play soccer on Monday nights in Rome; i'm excited to start going with Anna to watch them!
Another very fun time in Irsina!! I loved when I walked up and down the main street this time, even though I wasn't with Francesco, people still recognized and talked to me. I love the small town feel of everyone knowing each other. I look forward to returning to Irsina again someday soon :-)
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