Today was the first day on the scaffolding. For the past two weeks, our half of Program A has been working on surveying San Giovanni Batista, and the other half of the students working on Porta Burgis, one of the oldest gates in the city. Their task was to physically remove all the mortar on the left side of the gate, clean it, then reapply new mortar. Today was the day we switched jobs, and my group began on the right side of the unfinished stone and brick gate. About 10 minutes into it, we decided that our right arms were going to be very manly from the hammer, and our left arms all shriveled up from holding the chisel awkwardly. The 12 or so of us are spaced out on the scaffolding on 4 levels, 3 to a level. The people at the top have to deal with the height issue (being about 30 or so feet in the air), and the people on the bottom have to deal with the stray chunks of mortar that fall from the upper 3 levels. I’m second from the top – a nice little compromise, I think. Although, you do feel bad when people below you are not speaking to you very nicely when you don’t have time to yell “heads” when a rock crumbles out of the wall…. We were just getting into our work when the afternoon storm rolled in. Almost instantly, people realized that we were in a giant skyscraper of metal rods and began scrambling down, running for cover into Bar Centrale, which is pretty much right below us. The old men that usually loiter about in their chairs outside, people watching, joined us in the café. Good old American music was playing on the TV until the power went off. Then we just gathered around the gelato display, hoping the person would rather have us eat it for free than let it melt and go to waste…. it was only wishful thinking, since the power came back on, the storm decided to stop, and we were back on the scaffolds, “tink tink tink tink”ing away.
The evening only proved to get better and better. At 8:45, I went out to dinner with some friends, trying out a new restaurant outside the old city. We were the only patrons, it seemed. Children were running about as we drank our champagne in this classy situation… welcome to Italy. Good conversation and great friends helped pass the time until our food arrived. And let me tell you – t’was well worth the wait. I consumed my first steak since… I don’t even remember. A fillet on a bed of asparagus sent my mind straight to Ruth’s Chris. Granted, it couldn’t even come close to comparing with good American meat, but it did the job. I was quite a happy camper. Before we knew it, it was after midnight. On our way back to our apartments, we ran into our Italian friends, who were having a birthday party for one of their cars, in the post office parking lot. Some people are really into birthday parties, apparently. But hey, whatever floats your boat…
That steak certainly kept mine a-bobbing…. ;)
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| DROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL |
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| :) |
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| Its taller than it looks, I promise. |
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