Prima Settimana

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Ciao a tutti! We've just finished our first week of work for the 2009 season, and the weather has totally thrown everything for a loop. We've had relatively cold temperatures, plus plenty of rain, thereby turning the entire site into a huge mud pit, punctuated with large holes full of standing water. It's slow-going with heavy clumps of dirt to lift, tools getting coated, and shoes caking and sticking in the mud.

My storerooms are a bit different from where I worked in 2007. We use a garage up near the museum that is owned by the Commune of Murlo. We have plenty of space, it's nice and cool, but the bathroom situation is a bit...interesting. There is, indeed, perhaps the most complicated and nuanced bathroom in the garage that we've named "Space Bathroom." You have to pay to use it, and everything is automatic. You get 15 minutes in there, a limited amount of toilet paper, and whether you're done or not, that door will open. It auto-cleans itself every 10 minutes or so. The problem with Space Bathroom is that it causes the electricity in the garage to flicker, making our computers restart themselves. Also, the self-cleaning causes the lights to flicker, and I'm convinced I will be epilleptic by the end of July.

So...we're only allowed to go to the bathroom at the museum or the tourist office, both of which are open from 10-1 and 3-5. Our work day is 7-4. So if someone really has to go, he or she must walk the 15-20 minutes back to town. Luckily, I've been able to adopt a road bike that someone left here last year, so I can make a quick dash if I need to. Also...the museum is closed on Mondays.

The other interesting development is the presence of wireless Internet at Circolo Arci, the place we've dubbed the "Commy Bar" in town. It's no longer the "Commy Bar," but rather claims to be apolitical. And by apolitical, they mean the democratic party of Italy, which is sort of center-left (for now). I've since become a member. I will receive my ID card on Monday. Since having joined, the old men that have spent the last 7 seasons leering at me now leer at me AND will say hello and carry on a conversation. That's progress.

Will try to update more often, now that my political leanings allow me to use wireless Internet. Off to Siena today to look for T-shirts with bad English translations.

Ciao ciao!

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Photos

Glamour Shot
Glamour shot of the Duomo in Florence that I took a week or so ago. Tasty.

Relaxed
Very friendly kitty at the Boboli Gardens, Palazzo Pitti, Florence