Luca's Graduation

The Graduation was fantastic. It was very different to an Australia one though. To save myself some time, I am going to outline it in bullet points.

• First, the candidate presents their thesis to a professor and a small audience. Luca's went for about twenty minutes, and was about the recovery of a winery in California after an earthquake. 
• Luca was presented with their certificates by the professor, and a laurel wreath was placed around his neck. Plenty of photos were taken with friends and family on the steps outside the theatre of the presentation.
• We walked across a small bridge to a wide, tree-lined footpath on the other side of the river. There, a plastic spreadsheet was laid on the ground in front of a tree, and a huge poster, with photos and a crossword about Luca was taped onto a tree.
• Luca took off most of his clothes and had to run past everyone who tried to hit him.
• The new graduates get dressed in funny clothes chosen by their friends. Luca wore red and white striped pants, a blue dressing gown with white stars and an 'Uncle Sam' hat because he studied in, and only very recently returned from, the United States.
• He was given a marker and had to fill in the crossword. Every time he guessed a wrong answer he had to drink out of a bottle of mixed alcohol. Everyone else - the audience - had the answers to the crossword.
• While he was doing the crossword, various tricks were played on him. His hat was filled with flour, tinned corn was put down his shirt, he was blindfolded and made to kiss a fish and he was fed a baguette filled with cat food - which he didn't know about.
• Once he finished the crossword, he put on normal clothes and we all walked through town to a cafe named Pedrocchi Caffe. It is quite famous, and I have put a link to the Wikipedia page.
• At the cafe, we ate fancy little things, such as semolina fish cakes, olive oil foccacia, and a variety of little pieces of bread with piped fillings. Then we ate pork and bean risotto, and then a beautiful cake. It was like a mille-feuille, many layers of flaky pastry with cream and custard, and cream and crushed nuts on the side and the top. 
• We sat in the cafe and talked, and then people started to leave. Giuliana took me to have a little look at the main gate of the university. It was amazing. The ceilings were painted with the coats-of-arms of the aristocrats who studied there. It is the second oldest university in the world, and the first woman to get a degree received it from Padova.
• We then wandered around the old part of town for a little while and saw the police to get a residency permit. They didn't know what to do with the forms.

That is all for yesterday. I am going to keep it neat and do another post for today (so far!!)