Laurea di Giuseppe

As I mentioned in the last post, Giuseppe graduated last Thursday.  It was a long time coming because he was supposed to graduate back in February, but Italy being Italy, it never happened. We arrived at his school on time for the graduation and waited 1.5 hours for his professor to show up to lead the ceremony...again, that's Italy for you. The ceremony was in a small classroom packed with about 150 people and only 100 chairs.  Luckily, it's nothing like our graduation ceremony in the states.  The whole thing lasted maybe 10 minutes.  Yes, that's right...we waited 1.5 hours for a 10 minute ceremony!! The graduation was only for the economics department and there were only about 15-20 students that graduated in his class.

35 of Giuseppe's relatives came into Rome from Irsina and Milan for the graduation. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, parents, family friends. They travelled all morning in the horrendous rain storm (roughly 6-7 hours), but luckily, everyone made it safely. Giuseppe is the first person in his family to receive his Laurea, so it was a very big deal.

After the ceremony and the 30-minute picture-taking party, we headed to the restaurant that Giuseppe and Francesco work at, for lunch. This was not just any ordinary lunch, but a full-out 6-7 course meal with wine, of course. The appetizers kept coming and coming and coming...there were probably 10-12 appetizers that were brought to the table. Then came the pasta dish, followed by the main seafood course, followed by a lemon sorbet.  Finally, came the cake and champagne. I was SO full and tired by the end of the meal. The lunch lasted for almost 4 hours!!! It felt so surreal to be at a lunch with Giuseppe and 40 of his family members celebrating this special occasion.

Then came Saturday night, which was the real party! We celebrated Giuseppe's graduation with about 25 of his closest friends at the Irish Pub near his house.  We reserved a section of the bar and it worked out great.  There was a DJ and a big dance floor where we danced until 5am! Anna and I bought a cake for Giuseppe, but that was a bad idea because a cake fight ensued when we served it. What a disaster...there was cake EVERYWHERE!! The staff at the bar were not so pleased with our group.

Here is what a mess Giuseppe was after the cake fight: