James's Field Trip!

A huge pile of wool for weaving

On the way to Bevagna

Today, my class and the grade below me went to Bevagna to look at the city. We started off at a weaving place and there was a weaver there who showed us this really big two-person loom. The loom had many gears and when you sat down, you had to move your feet to move backwards.  When you moved backwards, you wound the silk thread that was in a cocoon onto wooden pole. They didn't take it off, but we went upstairs to another place where they made bracelets out of thread, and the person there showed us how she was making a towel.  So we got to watch her do that, and she told us we could feel the thread on the loom. At the end of being there, we bought some stuff, and I bought a red and black bracelet.

The wooden pole and the tray of silk cocoons

Part of the loom

Candlemaking

Then we left and went to a place where they made candles. We ate there before we started the tour.  The guide got out one of his ladles and spooned out some melted wax to show us what it looked like.  Some of the students asked why the wax was dark, and he said, "It's dark because it's not near the light, so it looks dark." And then he put on his apron and he started adding wax onto these thin candles.  There were wicks with some wax on them and he ladled out some of the wax and poured it onto the wicks to make the candles bigger. He let them cool; the frame that the candles were on was circular, and had a bunch of teeth on it, so they put the candles onto the teeth.  The worker had to complete the circle ten times for the candles to be ready. After cooling slightly, he pulled off two of the candles and twisted them together. Above us was a wood candle rack.  There were candles hung together in groups of three, meaning the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I bought a candle and two heart-shaped pieces of beeswax.  The guy there was giving us a discount I think, because the candle was 3 euros and the heart-shaped thing were 1 each, but he gave them to me for 4 euros instead of 5.

Next, my group met up with the other group (they had been at the weaving while we were at the candlemaking) and then we went to a place where they had metalworking.  And toward the end of it, I figured out what the person there was doing: he was showing us how old coins were made! He had a stand on the table, placed a metal circle on the stand, and then he put another piece on top, and then used a HUGE hammer to whack the stand on top.  That stand has engravings and marks of the coin, and when he hammered it, the bottom stand had one mark and the top had another mark -- so it made the marks on the coin! The guide soaked the coin in lemon juice. When he was about to hit the coin once, he almost hit a student!

We walked to a paper-making place. There was a guide there who took us in and showed us a small cutter for cutting cloth into small pieces.  We went to the next station adn in the meantime, I saw this bag of cotton and that cotton was put into water and mixed. We saw this huge machine, and at first I didn't know what it was for.  Then the guide told us that when he pulled a rope, it turned on the water and the water came town over this water mill, and that made the mill turn.  This made some cool hammers go up and down, which made a HUGE racket.  When the guide let the rope go up a little bit, the machines slowed down until they stopped.

The paper was made in some water from cotton pulp; the pulp went onto this tray-type thing that had lines and holes...the worker pulled up the tray from the water, and that made a fairly thick layer of wet paper. The guide got two students to move the paper onto another piece of paper, so he put the tray next to the vat of pulp.

Then the guide took us upstairs.  Upstairs, we got to see the already dry pieces of paper hanging up. He told us about this picture which was of a festival where they made this glue and then he took us to a desk where they had a bunch of finished paper, a few quills, and a few envelopes made of the same paper.  We were about to leave, and then I decided to get some paper and an envelope.

We left and we went to this area where we waited for the other group, and then we went to the main piazza and then we left, went over a bridge onto a bus and then we came home!

 Love,

James