I had an Epiphany

La Bufana's House

In middle school my class wrote essays about having those moments of clarity known as epiphanies.  I think I still have my paper, but I am way too lazy to go find it…especially since I would then be obliged to type the whole damn thing in here.  Beyond that, I am relatively certain that if I did seek out my eighth grade essay, I would likely have to lower my current opinion of its pure brilliance.  I am an American and I like my inflated sense of eighth grade achievement.  Also, my eighth grade bangs were killer. No lie.

In the Christian sense, Epiphany Day is the 6^th of January.  It is a feast celebrating the magi otherwise known as the three kings or the three wise men.  Recently I was having a discussion with another non-Italian international and she referred to these guys as the three magic kings.  Regardless of the name you use, they followed a star and end up meeting little tiny baby Jesus on the twelfth day of Christmas.

Here in Italy there is a mythical character who flies through the sky and fills the good children’s socks with candies and toys.  The naughty little ones get stockings full of sugar charcoal, onions and garlic.  Sounds remarkably similar to the American lure where an old dude flies through the sky right?  Big difference is, La Befana does her flying on Epiphany Eve rather than Christmas Eve.  Befana is said to be an awesome housekeeper.  So awesome that she may just sweep your floors with the broom she rides on her way out of your house.  If there is going to be unlawful entry into my house in the name of a traditional Italian celebration, I would gladly trade a sock full of sugar for a clean house.  I mean that too- any of you New Year resolvers who gave up junk food or sugar, I will hook you up – after you sweep my floors a-la-Befana.

La Befana is almost always portrayed as a haggard old witch in a babushka riding a broom of straw.  Here are some that were for sale this holiday season.

Saint Francis of Assisi

 

I thought about dressing up in Befana fashion and doing a little B&E just to show my Italian spirit, but we decided to knock out yet another one of Italy’s regions with a trip to Assisi (Ah-See-See) in the central Italian region of Umbria.  You all have surely heard of Saint Francis of Assisi even if you aren’t Catholic.  He was the dude who went to Egypt in an attempt to convert the Sultan, put up the first nativity scene, and was the first human to experience stigmata.  When he wasn’t busy with this sort of frivolity, he was off creating the Order of Poor Clares  as well as the Third Order of others and Sisters of Penance.  He’s one of two Italian patron Saints, I think he is like the one of pets or cured meats or something.

Anyway, this cathedral was MASSIVE…you know, like cathedrals tend to be and I just kept being struck by how this was built with ridiculous amounts of money and worldly wealth in honor of someone who had a distaste for such things and preferred to live in poverty.  Se la vi, it wasn’t wasted on the pilgrims of which there were many.  I have been in a lot of churches in Europe as a tourist and I have never seen so many pilgrims!  It was really rather humbling.  Maybe they were there for the epiphany.  I don’t know.  

This is Me and Roo standing outside the entrance to the lower church which is where the Saint’s bones are maintained.  There were so many people there at the Tomb of the Saint that one had to continue a slow stutter step without stopping.  Again, there have been many uber interesting things to behold in the tombs of Cathedrals, but never had I been caught in such tourism. 

While looking through a pile of touring photos, I noticed that we take a lot of pictures and I often looked like a thrift sale.  So, I made a conscious effort to not dress like a bum nearly as often and I was doing great with that until this beauty!  Great outfit right?  I know!  Skinny ankle length jeans with trainers and white tube socks with a jacket that is a size too large, maybe I should crop my legs out of this photo…

Scary Elevator

Randomly, my day did not start off so incredibly unfashionable.  We stayed the previous night in the southern coastal town of Sorrento.  Our bags were in the car and the key turned in at the desk, but we had not been to our hotel’s private beach, maybe because it was wicked cold being January and all, so we took the elevator down the cliffside to visit the beach.  So worth it!  Exiting the elevator that would give the sanest person phobias, we were greeted with views: in one direction was a waterfall coming down the cliff face, the other way was the gulf of Naples and Mount Vesuvius.  It was all so amazing that I decided to take the brand spakin' new camera I got for Christmas and make a panoramic video clip for posterity.  And that, was the precise moment when a wave came out of nowhere and caused me an epiphany…

Wet Kelly

The sea is pretty cold in January.