Un altra blog

What a week. Last week I had mentioned I had to work that entire weekend because of the Volterra Medieval Festival. This weekend was much the same and just as busy. Thus I haven't had a day off since Friday the 18th of August, however, I was in Florence that day and therefore haven't had a day to relax and do nothing since the Sunday prior to that. Luckily, Marco, my boss is letting me have the day off on Wednesday (if I understood him correctly). Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to enjoy the festivities since I was working so much. I did see alot of people in costume and I heard alot of music coming from the Piazza. It sounded like fun. They even change your money from Euros to the recreated money of the time (called Grosso). And just like proper Medieval fasion, there's a website where you might be able to find more info and pics of the festival: "www.volterra1398.it".

Maybe next year I'll get to go to it. In fact, I invite anyone wanting to come here, to visit during that time next August. Hopefully by then I'll be working in my field and doing something I enjoy a bit more seeing as working in a restaurant isn't exactly what I want to be doing a year (let alone 6 months) from now. Unfortunately, since I've been so busy, I've had little time to study my new Italian language books nor clean my house. I can't promise myself I'll do that Wednesday on my day off seeing as my first goal is to relax and recooperate from the past few weeks. I also might go with a friend of Marco's who works in construction to a site outside of Volterra. He wants me to do some design work for sculpture garden he's working on. Besides sculptors, I guess there's going to be an area for entertaining and dancing. Thus, I think he wants me to design a pedestal with a seat and speaker included for each of the dozen or so sculptors to sit on. Regardless, I am looking forward to getting my feet wet with some kind of work in the design field.

Nothing else much is new here other that what I have already mentioned. I don't know if anyone remembers that dumb show, Doogie Howser MD from the 80's, but I must say everytime I write one of these blogs, I am reminded of how he would reflect and write on his computer at the end of every show. Of course then was before the days of the internet and so his blog was nothing more than a private diary kept saved on his computer (or one of those big 5 ¼ floppy disks they used in those days).

Finally, I have just over 5 weeks till my parents arrive here in Italia. Any suggestions as to what they should see around Italia? Of course they already plan on visiting our extended family in and outside of Rome, and later coming here to Volterra. I do think that they need to see Florence and Venice, and maybe Siena too. I still need to fugure out how to approach Marco about asking for the time off seeing as right now we are short one person and I just had 3 days off 10 days ago. We are short one person because that 18 year old girl that was always annoying me, wanted to take some time off before she attempts college. Thus, yesterday, when we were busy with people coming out of the festival, was her last day.

Anyways, that's where I stand for now and hopefully I'll get to write another blog in the near future (before next weekend). Hope all is well back in the States and I look forward to your comments as always!

Ciao tutti!!

Bo

So its been a while. Sorry. As alot of you know, Kristi was here the past weeks. I think we both had a good time, however, I was also very sick and have only rescently began to feel better. Luckily you can buy antibiotics over the counter here.

Her and I did make it to Rome and Florence and I dragged her around till her feet couldn't take it anymore, and then we walked even more after that. But now I'm back to work. I arrived back in Volterra Saturday night, 10 minutes before I had to work. And I also worked Sunday and probably won't have a day off till the first Sunday in September sadly. So theres no chance of my recovering from the quick 4 days out of Volterra.

Anyways, I hope people are still checking my blog seeing as I haven't written one in over 2 weeks. But I hope everyone is well and I hope I'll have more to talk about soon.

Ciao tutti!

Bevo troppo

So Saturday was one hell of a long day as expected. I started work at noon and finished around 3:30 for my regular break. I was already tired but couldn't sleep when I went to take a nap. Later, I arrived back at work around 7:30 and it was chaos. We were so busy and luckily the 18 year old girl stayed out of my way. I ran the kitchen smoothly. My job was pretty much to assist my boss who was making and cooking the pizzas. I cut I don't know how much mozzarella and sliced so much prosciutto and never lost my cool when we started running out of things like mushrooms and tomatoe sause.

I was proud of myself and was relieve when we ran out of sause because 50 pizzas was enough for us and it was damned near midnight. So we cleaned up fast and got everything done by 1am and my boss insisted giving me a glass of Proseco (an Italian sparkling wine) and he toasted with me and he said "a tu" meaning "to you". So I appreciated that he appreciated my hard work. We ended up leaving by 1:30 which was fine by me.

I am also starting to think that people like showing me off. Like my boss is always introducing me to everyone as "Vincenzo, americano della Detroit" or like someone I barely know likes to walk around and be seen with me. Maybe I am overthinking it but regardless, I like it nonetheless.

Another thing I've been doing, is I am starting to think in Italian. Like when going through my clothes, I was thinking "questo e sporco" [this is dirty]. So thats a good sign I think that I am grasping the language (slowly).

Anyways, I've been on the internet too much this week and need to get some things done before I go back to work. Hope everyone is well and hope to get some comments!


Ciao tutti!