Main Squeeze

Shhhh! Don't tell anyone. And here I was finally beginning to feel comfortable with what Doug calls "organized chaos."

We drove to the ancient ruins of Pompeii this morning and walked and walked and walked and walked. Pompeii is huge. We all know everything about the place from what we've watched on the Discovery channel, the History channel, Fox news, etc., so there's really not much to add. What's cool, though, is that you actually walk on the same mosaics they walked on, and you could touch the frescos if you wanted to. In fact a number of tired tourists were leaning up against some very nice wall paintings.

Now back to the "organized chaos." First: I am not the one who hit the pedestrian this evening; the car is another matter...

To an American like me, driving here is unbelievable. Cars, and especially scooters, pass everywhere - including on blind hairpin turns. And we're talking about narrow, narrow streets with high stone walls on both sides. Dad, you would have loved to drive here when you were younger. What makes it all work is great kindness among drivers. Once I take a little initiative by pulling out into traffic, other drivers stop and let me in. In fact, I've even begun passing on blind turns myself. Which is where the problem happened. A car was parked in the very narrow road (an all to frequent situation) and there just was not enough room for me going one way and the truck going the other way to pass each other. So my car got a bit too friendly with the parked car. Oops. Fortunately, no one was hurt, unlike the pedestrian hit by the car in front of me, but that's a whole different story...