A Day in the Life
Wednesday, May 14th, 2014
I don’t really think of this particular Saturday  May 10th as anything particularly special. Hence the title. It did have some interesting points. There was the Mercatino Antiquariato in Piazza Santa Stefano. This is held on the 2nd Saturday and Sunday of each month. Unlike the flea market held every weekend, this is limited to relatively good stuff rather than cheap clothes, kitchenware, etc. I roamed around looking for some little gifts for friends in California (or for myself). While I saw a lot of interesting stuff, there was nothing that really struck me as particularly great so I came away empty handed other than the photographs below.
First sighting of the market.
Some very nice pieces of furniture at this booth
Another nice piece at the same booth
No particular specialization here.
Linens and lace.
Vendors get hungry too.
Vintage British silverware and doctor’s office exhibits at this booth. Strange combination.
A treasure trove for doll collectors.
Looks like you almost have to have an engineering degree to make coffee with this machine.
The very historic Chiesa di Santo Stefano in background. Note that the piazza is made of small stones. Beautiful but tough to walk on.
For collectors of fumetti (comics).
Next I had sent messages back and forth with Vittorio about maybe having dinner together on Saturday night. I had done this several times in the past so when I got a message that we should meet at the pub (which he calls the temple) at 8:30, I knew what to expect. So I got there at 8:30. There were only Vittorio and Barbara (his wife) and a couple of others but he explained that there were others at a bar not too far away. So it proceeded this way. They called or messaged back and forth:
“So how many of us are there?”
“I don’t know yet, we’re expecting a couple of more people to show up. So at about 9:30 they decided that they had the final total so now a different conversation ensued:
“OK, we have a head count of 14, where do you want to go?”
“I’ll ask the others here.”
“We have these choices but need to find out where we can reserve a table for 14 this time of night.”
So finally at about 10:30 everything was settled and we were ready for the trek  to the restaurant. It was about a mile away and I walked there with Davide while others came mostly by motorino (motor scooter). So we all arrived at about 11:00 at a restaurant that was thankfully in the direction of where I live. The waitress was a real kick and very expressive with her hands and a great sense of humor when describing the specials for the evening. The specialty of the restaurant was seafood done in a southern Italian style.
The dinner. Front right is the crazy waitress and Carlo il texano is standing. The other Carlo is taking the photo and I don’t know where Davide went.
So we had a great dinner, followed of course by coffee and a variety of liquors, some made in house by the chef. A good time was had by all. We finally rolled out of the place at 2:00 in the morning and I walked home accompanied much of the way by Carlo, who I call Carlo il texano since he has kind of a cowboy look and gait. I really slept well after this second mile walk.
