I enjoyed my morning coffee, a cortado. Cortado literally means “cut” in Spanish and Portuguese, as in cut back the amount of milk that is used for a cappuccino. For me it’s the perfect mix of coffee and milk. In the US the cortado is sometimes called a Gibraltar, after the American brand of glass used to serve the drink there.
I look up and towards the elevator. Later, I walk closer. The building was finished in 1899–the elevator was operational in 1902–and looks like something out of Star Wars, I find. It goes up six floors and at that level a bridge leads across a street to the ground floor of another street. The view is amazing. The city is built on and around and through hills that define the neighborhoods.
The engineer in me can only marvel and think, “What a remarkable structure.”
Eiffel tower opened in 1889. This structure must have been inspired by that, I imagine.