giovedi santo, american eggs, and roosters

The Easter break has officially begun in Italia. Can you see the excitement in their eyes? Tonight we are headed down to the church for a "lavanda dei piedi"  service on this Giovedi Santo. (Holy Thursday = Last Supper = Jesus washes feet of 12 apostles) This catechism class, coupled with the very devout family of these 2 neighbor kiddos, has us seeing more of the inside of the local church lately. Catholic guilt is real.

Even though I am indeed Catholic, I'm never really certain of exactly what to expect here; a neighbor suggested that perhaps there will be some actual feet washing happening. Hmmm. Probably can't take photos. Sorry. I know you want to see those toes from the paese ;)

But on to the eggs ...

While these neighbor kiddos were excited to be invited in by Young One for egg dying, they were equally excited to be able to eat some of those hard boiled eggs. Accustomed to fresh eggs from Zia's chickens, Gloria asked me what kind of bird made this strange white-shelled egg with the brown yolk? Italian eggs have much, much brighter yolks compared to the garden variety American egg. (These particular eggs are from Denmark, by the way, where yolks evidently aren't so bright either.)

I learned that eager little hands are not well-suited to wrapping rubber bands around eggs for dying. Crack, Smash, Broken Egg Shells. Not a problem . . . more eggs for snacking. I did manage to wrestle a few from their grips to experiment with the bands. Pretty cool.

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A bit of onomatopoetic egg / chicken trivia:  American roosters call "cock-a-doodle-doo!"  while Italian roosters wake us with "chicchirichì." ("Chi" sounds like "key.")  The paese is full of them. These Italian roosters. I hear them, often. It's true: chicchirichì!