Naples: Are You Well Armed?

The power went out during that last email (lightening storm), and I am very surprised it went through... (I hit send the second the lights went out).

I’m just sending my entire email list this time because I missed a bunch of people on my contact list last time (I’m not entirely certain who I emailed and who I didn’t before the lightening struck).

Anyway, since the last email I’ve traveled to Naples with two girls I met in Rome. The city of Naples is pretty gross; garbage is littered through the streets and graffiti is everywhere. The banisters on the stairs, the door handles, and well pretty much everything looks and feels if it were caked with an inch of grime and grease. When we first entered Naples with our packs the girls and I were convinced we were going to be jumped and mugged. The girls I was traveling with were depressed and disappointed by the appearance of the dirty, gross, and busy city.

My tour book informs me that I should get the hell out of Naples on the ASAP and go to Capri Island... I think it’s funny how pushy my book really is. The author writes her opinions as God given truths instead of suggestions, and the restaurants she recommends are not really on a backpacker budget.

There a lot of scary looking Italians populating Naples, and the girls wanted to leave with so much desperation that they booked a ticket to Florence for the following morning, minutes after arriving. I however, found Naples hilarious (so I booked another couple nights).

Naples is a time warp to what I imagine 1988 New York City might have looked during the height of the rising murder and crime plaguing the USA’s inner cities (it lasted from the 80’s and into early 90’s). The streets of Naples were littered with bottles, graffiti, smog, and leather jackets with gangs of Italian men inside of the leather jackets. Sometimes I felt very self-conscious knowing that I dressed looked and dressed different from the people on the streets. I was always expecting some leather jacket with an Italian inside of it to shank me and steal my wallet. My only comfort that lingered in my mind as I walked around the streets of Naples was the knowledge that if at any moment one of these leather jackets with an Italian man inside of it attempted to jump me I would have an entire arsenal of broken bottles and wooden sticks at arms length at any given moment, and in fact, I just armed myself in this cafe just to prove my case. The best part of my arsenal is that most of the bottles are pre-broken, which means that I would not have to waste time smashing them to arm myself with a shank.

All joking aside I like Naples; last night was the night before ash Wednesday and all the children were about silly stringing everything and throwing confetti into the air. Later, we went to a pretty stellar pizza restaurant, (one that was a must go in our lonely planet book) and with all of the excitement going and the excellent and cheap food, the girls decided they actually enjoyed their stay in Naples. It was truly an Italian experience. All the streets are winding and most of

the shops are in back alleys where the employees and shopkeepers wait outside waiting for someone to enter their store, a friend to pass by, or for anything at all. The shops are not rustic but classical in their appearance fresh fruit and vegetables cover the walls so that nothing else can be seen. The men and women look like characters out of a novel, and I feel as if I’m walking through a scene from The Godfather. The people of Naples are dark featured with intense and jovial expressions on their faces. My favorite part of Naples was when some little kid was horsing around on a fire hydrant and some random Italian guy smiled and tickled him. If this moment had taken place in America the tickler would have been thrown in jail with a pedophile charge slapped upon him. I thought it was cool. I love how everyone in Naples knows everyone and they actually seem as if they don’t mind taking time out of their day to speak to anyone or everyone.

Anyway I saw the ruins of Pompeii today. Pompeii was magnificent and it so large I found myself lost amongst the many tiny streets. Stating that I was lost in Pompeii isn’t much of a statement because I typically couldn’t find my way out of a cubical, but Pompeii was large and confusing. I spent 4 hours in the town and felt as if I had seen only a fraction of what this excavation site had to offer. Everything was perfectly preserved as if it had been abandoned 100 years ago. I would say more but I really must depart this cafe and get back to naples... tomorrow I’m going to Florence. (i had wanted to go to capri, but all that they seem to have are hotels... next time gadget next time)...

P.S. its like plus 15 right now brwahahahaha... but if your jealous of the temperate climate rest assured ill prolly get shanked on the way home. hah.

Rome: The Romans Hate Me... and Other Tourists

When I left home or even when I had been planning my trip I was conscious of only one thing: I wanted a radical change. I did not want to go somewhere that freely spoke English and sold American style coffee. I chose southern Europe because it was a) warmer than northern Europe, and b) it was completely unlike Canada.

Rome was where the trip really began. And although Rome is the capital of Italy it is the only place in Italy that is actually void of Italians. The streets were filled with immigrants who sold umbrellas when it rained and tripods when the sun shined. Rome was also the only place in italy that had asian restaurants.

Because I threw myself basically into the fire, I was paranoid with a feeling of inadequacy. I was very self-conscious of my language and I perceived that every shopkeeper and waiter despised me, which might have been the case. Rome is, after all, tourist central. Even in the dead of January Rome was swamped with tourists.

My first day in Rome was spent wandering around the wrong train station. I had been Trying to find my hostel, but I did not realize the train from the airport did not take me to the central station. After a couple of hours a very kind gentleman from India gave me directions. Although my pack was 7 kilos lighter than when I returned back to Canada it seemed as though the weight of my bag would kill me. I couldn’t believe how ridiculously heavy a couple pair of clothes, a camera and sandals could really be… later I would laugh at very thought of someone finding a 17 kilo pack heavy.

The police and security guards were my favorite thing in Rome. The sirens are hilariously comical and not at all menacing or authoritative by North American standards. And when you saw a group of 3 police cars scream down the road with the sirens blaring you would laugh because the police there would be police officers crammed into the vehicles little black paddles in hand waving frantically at people demanding that they get out of the way. It felt like it was a scene from an old bugs bunny cartoon. It was hilarious. If I ever were to be pursued by such a spectacle they would catch me quite easily because I would be laughing too heavily to resist. Furthermore there were police officers everywhere! On every street corner stood a police officer with a machinegun in hand listening to an ipod and typing a text message with the free hand. I was always worried that I might accidentally startle an officer and he’d tear me to shreds with his fully automatic gun… I’m not really exaggerating my concern over that one issue.

Among a great deal of other things (such as the charging people to use washrooms in public places) I found the computers especially perplexing. Every country has their own set of rules for the keyboard, and although the differences between an English keyboard and an Italian keyboard were minute, the differences were enough to butcher my use of apostrophes.

The Colosseum was huge and very cool, but I honestly preferred the forums- I wandered through the roman forums during a heavy rain shower and drank from a bottle of wine. The experience of the forums was easily one of my favorite moments I can recall on my trip. It is something that was really uneventful and there was nothing especially great or memorable that happened during that three hour adventure, but the moment lingers in my mind as I type… months later.

One particular aspect that I did appreciate very much was that the country of Italy fully embraced my drinking habits. In effect I did not feel like an alcoholic, and did not find myself the only person drinking wine like it was part of a balanced diet: 6-7 vegetables a day and a bottle of wine.

The Vatican was disgraceful. I half expected to find a pope shot glass in the many boutiques throughout the chapel. We were herded through the chapel like sheep, it was wall to wall with tourists, and it was difficult to stand and admire anything – short of the back of the head of the tourist in front of you. For a person who suffers from misanthropic tendencies the Vatican was hell.

One of the better sights was the Bone Chapel. It was a chapel decorated with the bones of 6,000(?) monks. It was very eerie especially the quote written in bones “what you are now we were, and what we are you will be”. It sure as hell beat the haunted mansion in disneyland.