Who needs helmets when you've got skulls like ours: a lesson for every father to teach his son
I visited Naples for the first time a few days ago. And I loved it: the spirit. The revelry. The (gritty) charm. I even loved the way that two, three, even four-person families piled on scooters and zoomed through the alleyways, helmets nowhere to be seen. (Although I did worry for their safety).
And then daylight broke.
Outside of the cleansing cover of night, I still liked the city, but it was also hard to ignore the other side of Naples... its trash. (Have you read in the news that the garbage crisis in Naples is over? Or come across the ever-erudite Berlusconi's comments a whole year and a half ago that he's fixed the problem? Because, erm, there's definitely still garbage everywhere). It was also hard to ignore the graffiti. And the absolute lack of rules, whether regarding traffic or, well, anything else.
Chaotic, yes. But even with the Vesuvian sunshine lighting up each nook, cranny, and trash pile, it still had gritty charm. Emphasis on "gritty."
Still, when I got back to Rome, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. And then ran across the street in front of oncoming cars, knowing that even if there wasn't a traffic light, or a crosswalk, or even the tradition of slowing down at the sight of a pedestrian on the side of the road, at least here in Rome, the traffic would stop. You know -- civilization.
