A new appreciation for generosity...and food

Wow, there are many wonderful Italians here. They have embraced us with loving, wide open arms. First off, Bryan's birthday was the 24th. The restaurant where I wanted to take him for his birthday was closed that day, so we went the day before. He and I have tried many interesting foods while being here, and one of the ones he wanted to try was baccala--salt cod, a Vicentino specialty. We had it at the restaurant, and it was good. We also had some rabbit tortellini, veggies, and lots of really good bread. The desserts where delicious as well. Bryan loved it and was glad that I could keep it a surprise. I made the reservation a week before we went and was bursting with the secret until the day we went. ^_^ We had fun.
Anyway, the next day, we were invited to have Christmas Eve dinner at the house of one of the church ladies after church. We had some really good pasta and salad, bread, and...more baccala. Now, there are some foods that I can eat 3 or 4 times a week. Baccala is NOT one of them. This lady, God bless her, gave me a HEAPING portion, as well as a heaping portion of polenta--basically, grits. now, I got through half of each serving, very slowly, and thought that that was enough. I looked around at all the rest of people's plates and saw that they were almost done with their entire portions of BOTH. (Deep breath...hoooooooo boy) I scraped up some more food with my fork. Bite by bite I ate...and ate...and ATE. The last 5 bites I thought I would DIE! I finished, gave everybody a big smile, and said, "Che buono!!" which is a big compliment. The hostess smiled, and we were happy. ^_^ We ate little for dinner that night.
Now the NEXT day, we went to another ladies house, and we had Christmas dinner with her family. It was great. Again, a LOT of food. Italians can eat!!! I couldn't believe it--9 courses!!!! Now, a cool thing about the way Italians do food is that instead of 3 huge helpings of one dish, you have 9 small servings of 9 different things. They really like variety when they eat. We were fed appitizers when we got there, and then we got antipasto--a serving of other appetizers before the pasta. Very tasty. After that, we ate delicious pasta--fettucine and salmon. After that, there was a meat course--turkey and veggies. Then salad. After that, we had chocolate and fruit. Then we had cafe--espresso--and candy, and we took a 3 hour break to rest between food servings. Games were great fun. Bryan and I had a bit of translation help, thank goodness. one of the people in the family is really good at speaking English and translated for us every once ina while. Anyway, after we rested for a bit, we came back and ate more tortellini, more meat, more salad, and then we had dessert!!!! Italians can eat!!!
Now, I know I spent the past coupla paragraphs explaining how these Italians are different, but you know, I really hope I am like that some day. I want Bryan and me to be as generous to people we don't know as they were to us!! This was their christmas, and they welcomed us in, and they treated us like their family. This truly beautiful gesture is one of the things that God wants us to do for others. Although there are difficult times in our lives, we can always use our talents and gifts to help others and to make them feel special. I pray that I will someday help people in our future home as much as they helped us. How beautiful people can be! Love to all!