Mayor of Grottaglie

For the past five years I have lived in Nagoya and before that a couple of other cities.  Not once did I see or meet the mayor of the city I was living in.  I have lived in Grottaglie for about two weeks and have seen and been near the Mayor twice already.

 Not the best photos, but the guy in the red and white stripe shirt is the Mayor, according to Wikipedia his name is Ciro.  Next time I see him walking around I hope to meet and confirm his name, make sure wikipedia is correct.

Apartment: Day 1

This past weekend I moved into my apartment in Grottaglie.  It's really nice to be out of the hotels  I was able to retrieve from storage things that I had shipped from Japan too. First things first, the landlord left me 5 bottles of premium local wine but ironically not a corkscrew.  So, one of the first things I did was walk a few blocks to the local grocery store and pick up a bottle opener.

 The apartment was furnished but when I decided to live the interior was not installed (apartment was gutted).  When I showed up to pick up the keys, it was the first time I was seeing the inside.  I'm really happy with how it was furnished, I asked for modern and the landlord delivered.

 Living room has a nice TV, dining table and some shelfs.  Like Japan, I ended up not getting cable but was able to hook up an Apple TV.

 Shower is nice.

This is the washing machine.  It took me a hour to figure out I needed to turn on the water supply for the washer to work.  I thought I was just pushing the wrong buttons but it turns out nothing happens without a water. Take note, no dryer.

This is the staircase to the second floor.

 The second floor has another living area with couch, fridge and sink.

The ironing board is also up here.... But I wont be using that very much.

 The roof top is awesome, a huge space, perfect for a BBQ party.  Right now it's actually too hot to hang out up here.  But I thinking this fall will be BBQ time.

 The dryer is outside on a balcony outside my bedroom. I guess Italians feel it's more safe for it to be out here.  The dryer does not have a drain, it just collects water in a bucket.   I need to get a plant to pour the water into.  Since it is so hot outside, I'm just air drying my clothes right now.

 From the roof, I also have a nice view of the sunset.

Flying Over Seattle

I had the opperunity to fly over Seattle this past week in a Cessna 172.  Pilot requested a scenic pass over the city from West Point, over the stadiums and on to Mercer Island before turning south to Renton.  Tower approved.

 Always looking for traffic.

A Washington State ferry heading towards the Colman Docks in Downtown Seattle.

 Looking south towards Harbor Island and the inlet to the Duwamish Waterway.

 Downtown Seattle

 It was weird, it was one of the limited number of beautiful days in Seattle but there was not much air traffic around downtown Seattle.

 Over the stadiums looking north towards the Space Needle.

 Car traffic on I-5 was not bad... But I-90 leading into the city was a total mess.

Trying to keep the plane below that 1800 foot celling of Sea-tac airspace around Seattle.  

Martina Franca, Italy

Martina Franca or MF is a town not far from Taranto and somewhere I thought about living until I decided to stay in Grottaglie. I think this is the second largest town in the area after Taranto.

 Like most towns in Southern Italy, it comes alive at night, everyone is walking around enjoying food, shipping and life. MF main church is beautiful, being as large as it is,it's difficult to take a photo with all the other buildings around it.

People in transit.

 Another recommended wine.  Primitivo is a grape native to Puglia, it's the best grape, but you can also find it from California under the 'code name' Zinfandel.

 People walking around, daily.  1pm, this plaza is empty and every store front is closed but a few hours later it's very busy.

Later in the evening things quiet down, everyone heads home.  

Alberobello, Italy

Alberobello is a small town outside Bari famous for Trulli or these funny looking stone huts.

Turns out this is also a UNESCO world heritage site, something I did not realize when I was visiting, they could have better advertised that.

 Most of these buildings are stores, restaurants or little one room apartments.  Somewhere in this mess of buildings are a few hotels, so you can stay in one if you want.

 This is a view from across the street, you can look out over the concentration of Trulli.  I guess there is over a thousand and many more out in the country side.  As you drive up on Alberobello, you see these in all the fields.

 I want to watch them trimming these trees, it's squared off so perfectly.

 This is the old church in the center of Alberobello.  I think this church setup a stage in the main plaza a few blocks from the church, preparing for an outdoor mass.

 But since the stage is a few blocks from the church, the priest and many others need to have a little parade to get there.

 Can't forget Blessed Virgin Mary.

 The parade was quite long, had a marching band and everything.  You can see me in the tuba, orange shirt.

 This was the priest approaching the alter (stage).  I did not stick around to watch mass though, it's usually in Italian.

 One last look, this is about a 40 minute drive from Taranto.

History of Television Antennas

You can walk up this stair case in old town Taranto and see out over the old city.

Other than the roof line, you really can't see that much.  But you can see what I think is every revision of television antenna over time.  I like how the RF antenna's point in one direction and the sat-dishs point in the opposite.

Street Performers

In Taranto, when the sun goes down the Street Performers come out. 

 The funny thing is, Tanrato and especially the old town of Taranto is not so popular place for tourist to visit. I have the feeling that most people watching are locals who heard some noise and came outside of  their apartments.

 The performers are actually really good, juggling, juggling with fire, making and climbing on towers of chairs and other typical street stuff.

 The fire juggling was kind of crazy, the line between performer and audience was not clear, everyone keep getting closer and closer.

 Great show, this was the central plaza outside the main church in the old town of Taranto.

 He got 4 chairs high.

 That guy had the best view of the show, he should of charged or vended a few local Birra Raffo.

 As the show ended, most of the street performers stood up and lit this place up!

 After the show, my route back to the hotel was through the center of old town, lit by these modified old school lamps.