Finally made it to what will eventually be my home base in the Naples vicinity. Of course, I was staying in a hotel on the waterfront for the time being, but will be returning to look for permanent housing in another month. Along the Via Partenope are several big tourist hotels and lots of cafes and shops. It really is a nice place to stay and have a lot of things within walking distance.
Naples lived up to it's reputation for crazy streets and driving. Actually, once I got the hang of it, I don't mind it at all. You have to view driving here as a dance, one person told me. That is very true. Traffic rules are mere suggestions and the number of lanes grows and shrinks as the situation dictates. If you think of a large ballroom of dancers and the way people move in and around each other as the dance progresses, then that is a very appropriate analogy. And if a rogue dancer decides to cut a swath diagonally across the dance floor, people just move aside and let them go and resume their dancing. Another description that I heard describes Naples traffic as flowing like water and that also is a good description.
One of the main differences I see is that you must be alert at all times. No setting the cruise control and going into autopilot like we do on the I-5. Scooters are whizzing around you darting in and out of the cars. They do a two short beep honk when they are getting ready to cut in front of you, or change lanes, but you have to be alert for that sound and pay attention to where they are. Then there are the large tourist buses who rule the roads by virtue of their size -- all must give way-- and the trains, trams, trucks and many cars. I actually didn't see any accidents the 10 days I was in Naples, not even a fender bender. The four days we were in NYC last year I saw lots of fender benders. Who can explain?
I did get lost a couple times my first few days in Naples. When you can't read the signs in Italian, and even if you could read them, they probably don't tell you what you need to know (like the name of the street you are on), and many streets are very narrow, cobblestone one-ways that were built for ox carts in the 1200;s, and people double park, or triple park and add to all that the intersections with 5 or 6-way splits-- all this is a recipe for getting lost. I drove down several one way streets the wrong way, drove on the sidewalk a time or two (acting like a native), took lots of wrong turns and at one point ended up in a really bad neighborhood that I didn't want to be in. At that point, I stopped and prayed for the Holy Spirit to lead me out of that place and he did. I eventually made it to my hotel using a map after being lost for about an hour, and made it to work on Monday in Pomigliano after being lost for over 2 hrs (once in Naples trying to find the autostrade -- their version of the interstate-- and again when I got to Pomigliano and couldn't find the plant). Sigh!
Then at the first opportunity I went and got a GPS which was a great help in Naples traffic. (In week 3 I will tell you how "Suzy 2" (my GPS) led me astray in another part of Italy but that is later). All of this taught me one of the most important lessons in the Italian way of life: live in the moment and let go of the little frustrations of life. Laugh about these things and just move on; it is part of the adventure and makes for really great stories later!
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