Tests and Fridays

Ciao,

Today leaves little time for blogging. I've made it every day since I've been here, but today looks as if it's going to be rather sparse when it comes to picture posting excitement. And for that, I am sorry. I'm sure I'll have more pictures come the weekend, and maybe I'll just toss up a few of my favorites so far that you may have not seen to this point. But I thought I'd just mention a little thing or two before I set out for my evening.

Italy has a very, very volatile election system, and every time parties jostle for power, somebody is angry and unlike in America, they just strike to show their frustrations. For example, there's a bus line here that doesn't run from 8-12 Monday mornings as a protest, and you just don't know that if you don't know about the strike. The company still advertises the route, it's just not worked. And the weird thing is after the strike period, people just go right on, starting at say 12.

It's just weird. In Napoli (or Naples), it's beautiful there, but there's been a trash strike going on for months now, so supposedly if you wander to the wrong area, it smells atrocious and you can get mugged since even the police don't go there. Yeah.

So, what else do people do to show frustrations? Tag. Or graffiti. You see a lot of it, but there are codes about it, like you can't tag monuments or statues, it's highly frowned upon, but political statements and artwork are almost encouraged. For example, outside my metro stop, there's this awesome mural that takes up two whole building sides, and it's just so cool. And encouraged, it's pretty fun to see.

Also, there are several types of police here. There are the Guardia di Finanze, or the Finance Police Force, that are in tan with green adorned uniforms, and they look like they just stand around and smoke cigarettes, chew gum, and look scary. I've heard that's their whole job, just to make sure things look like they're under control, and they just patrol away.

Then, there's the Polizia, or the standard police. Now, these aren't donut packing cops, they're sleek, fast, and look pretty in shape. They actually do things, like rush around in their cars that sound, and I'm totally not kidding here, like clown cars. They're in either green or light blue uniforms, and they're lightly armed for the job.

Now, the last group are the Carabinieri, or the Carbine Paramilitary Forces. And whoa. They're pretty crazy. They we're dark blue with red berets and have HUGE guns, and they kind of work like SWAT, but way more intense looking. They are actual soldiers who's job is to be out on the streets by monuments and pretty much assure nothing bad happens. And really, for lack of better words, just stand around and look buff and badass.

But yes, I have to get going, I'm meeting Travis and Camille, two close friends from back in San Diego, down on the other side of Roma in about 40 minutes, so I must make this one short and just kind of observational. Tomorrow brings more excitement, I promise, but until then,

Ciao.