Post date: May 01, 2014 11:26:15 PM
Week 3: Day 4
Walking down Via Giuseppe Garibaldi today I stopped and took a picture of the construction. They’ve been tearing apart and renovating the plumbing and stonework down the entire street. There are three workers who work every morning and afternoon. They carefully form and align the thick marble stones in perfect lines as indifferent people pass by. On the completed section of the street, everything looks perfectly renaissance. The buildings on either side are perfectly maintained with bright red and white paint. The ancient reused stones fit perfectly back together.
For lunch today, I went to San Lorenzo. The church is absolutely gorgeous, with its high bell tower and gothic skylight, it is one of the main sights in Genova. Along the streets are multiple immigrants selling clothes, sunglasses and trinkets. But closer to the church is the levitating monk. Every day he would appear there, and every day he would taunt me. Out of all the vendors, he was the most obnoxious because his trick made the least sense (we figured it must be a seat attached to a stick he’s hiding in his sleeve and we were right!). Where the ‘monk’ came from and why he was there didn’t make very much sense, but he was definitely a part of the Genova we all came to know.
After school today we went to the Galata Museum. The Galata Museum is the museum about Italian immigration to America. When we got there, we split up into groups of three people and got an Identity. My group and I were a young girl who was 15 years old and going to South America to be reunited with her family. We started out with only our passport and the hope of getting into America. First we got on the boat and saw the living quarters. We had already seen what it was like in the movie called “The Golden Door” where a family goes to America. The bunks were small and close together. Everything was compact and simple. Once we got through the mess hall and top of the boat we got to the different ports. They had an area showing what the conditions were like in different countries in South America. Then we got to the customs officer. A tall electronic man in a blue suit with gold buttons asked us questions in English. After a few minutes of interrogation we were denied. Why we were denied he did not say, but we were defeated and confused. Even though we had the advantage of understanding english and knowing what he wanted to hear, we weren’t accepted. We walked through a building and were denied, most traveled across an ocean.