Journal 3, Entry 3- Reportage: "The Spoletosphere"

On the road near the town square by the Post Office, there is a French boulevard. It's a wide street, paved in brick-colored cobbles. My mother has taken two hundred pictures of it in the past three days. It's line with oak trees on either side of it. Their bark is cracked and twisted and the city has tagged it with numbers. To the left, an ochre abandoned house stands surrounded by lights that were fashionable in the 1980s. Westeria moves in on its front and the main window has a hole in it. On the right, a field full of weeds and thistles taller than toddlers. They count out time in the breeze and they cover the valley. Next to these is a metal cage full of tall benches behind two shining elevators. When I asked for directions to the Alburnoz Hotel from a mairte'd he used it as a reference. "Go past that ugly jungle gym, take a left, and you're there." In the tunnel beneath the Papal Palace, pictures line the walls to celebrate the Spoleto festival. An older man stands in front of a shining version of the jungle gym installation. He smiles. It's tag-lined "The Spoletosphere."