Saturday

Well, today has to go down as one of the stupidest things that I have ever done! But, this story really starts last night, when we were having dinner with two of the supervisors that work for our sub-contractor, GTSi. They took us to a restaurant that turned out to be a great find. We started with antipastos that included thin slices of Parma ham, fresh bufalo mozzarella, grana, ricotta & something like a fluffy Philadelphia cheese, stuffed mushroom caps, fried eggplant, fried zucchini and a couple of things that I couldn't identify, but were tasty just the same. Then they brought out a couple of plates of fried mashed potato cakes, fried cheese and a type of fried batter that was about the size and shape of an onion bulb, similar to the Indian soffas. This was followed by a couple of mini-pizzas, which had only a light tomato sauce and large sea salt, to clean the palette. Next was an orecchioetta pasta with a light pesto sauce, then a local dish with sausage, potatoes and something that looks like collard greens but with the oil & seasonings didn't taste like anything I'd had before. Next to come was the meat dish, but we all refused to let them serve it! Just to damn full. So what did they do, but bring five kinds of desserts and gelato. Managed to get down a sample of everything and were ready to leave when the plates of fresh fruits hit the table. I don't know who ordered the Grappa and Limoncello, but they should have been shot! The bill for the six of us came to 100 Euros or about $118. Pretty darn cheap for as much food as they fed us. It was during the Grappa and Limoncello sipping that these two guys were telling us about the town of Sant' Agata di Puglia. It is a town that sits on top of a small mountain, which is visible from the plant we are building. Said that it had a very interesting monastery on the top of the peak. Claimed that it was very beautiful and we should take the time to see it. Well, Tom Chandler & I were planning to go out to the job site today to do bit of housekeeping that we couldn't do with everyone going in and out all day, and decided that today would be a good day to go see the Monastero di Sant' Agata di Puglia. The directions we had were to go to the central plaza and then follow the road up and stay on it until we got to the top. We found the plaza and took several photos of the surrounding countryside, the steeples, houses and people of the town. Got back in the car and headed up the only road. As we went up through the narrow streets, we marveled at the cleanliness of the city, the polished stones in the streets and how close the houses were to the road. We continued up the ever-narrowing street until I turned a corner, over a little hill, down the little hill and found ourselves in a dead end. Now when I say narrow street, I mean that I had to pull the mirrors in on the car just to get past the buildings. So, now here we are sitting down in this dead end street alley path place with no way to turn around and no way to back out. I mean that I literally scraped one of the doors (I did take out the optional insurance on the rental car) on the corner of one of the houses on the way in. Tom got out of the car and is trying to direct me as I attempted to back up this polished stone path with only inches of clearance on each side. It is about this time that a couple came out of one the houses. I'm sure they were wondering "What in the HELL are these two idiots doing with a car of that size in here!?!” They tried to help but it wasn't going too well. The woman, Margarite I found out later, suggested that her husband Giovanni drive the car. Best decision I made all day was to listen to her. With the help of about six other neighbors, much shouting in Italian, not many comments from two thoroughly embarrassed foreigners, half a clutch and twenty minutes later, Giovanni had managed to back the car up the hill and back down to the street that we should have turned on -- did you catch that -- should have TURNED. Going to talk to the boys Monday morning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Only missed it by 100 feet, but holy crap, what a difference that one simple little error in navigation made. You cannot believe how much help all of these people were, and not one of them made any comments about the stupid Americano. I asked if I could take Giovanni & the rest of the people to dinner or at least buy everyone a beer/wine at the local market, everyone was "No, no. No problema." When I got the camera out and took the photo of Giovanni, Margarite thought it was funny, but when I turned the camera on her, she kept turning away and telling me no. I told her "Per mi, tu essere la piu bella donna in totta Italia", but she would still not let me take her photo. When we got back in the car, and back on the main road, we decided that we really didn't want to see the monastery that bad after all. I can see Giovanni at the pub tonight talking with the boys, "You are not going to believe this, but this afternoon, some fool drove a car down in front of my house." "No" they will say, "No one would be dumb enough to drive down where you live" "Yes, I heard this noise outside of my house. It sounded like a car, but what would a car be doing here I ask Margarite. But when we walked outside, here is this enormous Ford Mondeao Station wagon?" "What did you do Giovanni?" they will ask. "When we finally got them out of the car, I backed it all the way back up/down to the market!" "Giovanni, you are making this up. No one is that crazy! Bartender! Don't give Giovanni any more wine. He is talking out of his head." This story will keep them rolling in the aisles for weeks to come, I'm sure. Don't know if I will ever venture back to the town of Sant Agata di Puglia for the rest of my life! *See photos in photo album.*