Italian Festivals

I have not written lately, but we have been busy with festivals. The first one took place right in our front yard. And I mean literally in our front yard. The Festa de Soco took place right here in our town of Grisignano di Zocco. I would compare it in size the AZ State Fair. It did not have the livestock, but everything else compared. We were fortunate (NOT) to have most of the food vendors and beer vendors on our street. In fact, the beer shack was just to the left of our driveway. The festival began Friday the11th at 6pm. Once it started there was no leaving our house. Things started rocking about 9 or so. Not bad on Friday and Saturday night. However, once Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday rolled around the things starting to crank up at 9 was not fun. The poor kids slept through most of it, but not soundly. We had parades at 9:30, music and announcements cranking over the loudspeakers starting at 10pm, and then on the final night fireworks at midnight. I can honestly say I know what it feels like to be shell shocked and no wonder the soldiers in Iraq have problems when they return. The festival was supposed to end on Wednesday, but we had  days of heavy rain so they extended it one additional day. Yippee!! The roads are so little here and the vendors were so many that I had to do a 5 point turn each morning to get out of the driveway so I would not hit the tables set up in the street. I can honestly say now that I have experienced an Italian festival first hand. Next year we are going to invite friends over and grill out as we watch all the people up and down the street.

Not quite sure what these guys are, but they were part of the parade.

So, a few days after recovering from the festival in our yard I decide to take the kids to another festival to celebrate the movement of cattle from the mountains (Festa della Transumanza). This was an interesting celebration. There is a large farm in this little town and every summer they move their cattle 80km up into the mountains. In Sept they bring them back down to the farm and it is a huge celebration. The cattle were supposed to arrive at 4:30 tonight. Having worked with cattle in my younger years I knew this 4:30 time frame was very flexible and it was. About 4:45 as 1500 + people lined the street of this little town the parade began. First in line were the tractors. It started with the big farm tractors and then local citizens showing off their tractors. There were some pretty cool ones. Next came the band along with majorettes. Next were the shepherds and then the long awaited cows. Of course they had placed cow bells on many of them so they made a ton of noise. The kids loved it. They were only inches from these cows as we had camped out for over an hour to guarantee our spot on the front row. Once the parade was over we left, but the festivities continued with food and dancing late tonight and more tomorrow. I guess this is something we will have to put on the calendar for next year to share with Jeff. He was unable to attend the festival with us as he is on a plane on his way back to the states for a conference this week in Baltimore. We really missed having him with us and Madison commented how she can’t wait to tell Daddy about it and show him the pictures so he will want to go next year.