Sunday, June 20, 2004
Vera Napolitana
Tim and I rode a train from Rome to Naples that arrived in the afternoon. At the train station we switched to the Metro and, inexplicably, had to wait thirty minutes for the subway (it was Sunday, but still unpardonable). While we waited on the platform, I heard a language that sounded awfully like Russian spoken around me. I knew that the southern Italian dialect was unique, but could it be this different than from the north? It turns out that Naples has a significant population of immigrants, composed mostly of Ukrainians and Sri Lankans. I saw quite a few Africans and a few Chinese street vendors, to boot.
We checked into our hostel (more on that later) and had a late lunch at a nearby pizzeria. Naples is the birthplace of the pizza, and sure enough, pizza is the city's staple food. We would eat it for every dinner during our stay. Neapolitan pizza is a simple dish. It is baked on a thin crust, like a flatbread (or a pita). It is usually topped with marinara sauce and cheese, but not always (as in the States). For the basic versions, the vegetable toppings are merely leaves of basil or mint. The average price is 5-7 €.
After lunch we took a tour of the city center. Naples is a decrepit city. Common sights here are piles of garbage in the street, open construction pits with no one working inside, and paint peeling from stucco buildings. This seems to bother no one. On this Sunday, large sections of the old town were eerily quiet. We visited one church, the Duomo, which was the site of a protest. Three or four young women were marching up and down the cathedral steps, quietly holding signs demanding higher wages. Hardly anyone paid them any mind, as if they were an open pit or a pile of trash.
When we got to a thoroughfare named Via Toledo, city life started to pick up. This street was full of juxtapositions. We got to Piazza Dante and met a crowd of over a hundred Sri Lankans, who were playing a game of tug-of-war. Later we walked past a Disney Store, and just outside on the sidewalk there was a couple of African men hawking purses and sunglasses. "You won't see that back home," Tim observed.
Via Toledo
Italy meets Sri Lanka
Coming soon...Cher: Aging Gracefully
Later that night we returned to the hostel. Called 6 Small Rooms, this place lived up to its name — just a couple of dorm rooms with four or five beds each, a common room and a kitchen. I had never stayed in a hostel before, so I was a little anxious about what the conditions would be like. It turned out there was nothing to worry about; it was clean and cozy. (Also, I had read somewhere that toilet paper was a rarity in Europe and that I should pack my own, but TP was in abundant supply in this place.) The folks I met there were interesting. Operated by Australians, 6 Small Rooms attracted travelers from all over the Anglophone world, including Canadians, Englishmen, Scots and Aussies. There was one memorable character from Toronto named Sunil. He was a hiphop type who dabbled in drugs ("I don't smoke at home, but I can toke up here because I'm on vacation") and talked a lot about himself. His best line came when he mentioned that he had been in all of the lower 48 states of America. Incredulous, I asked, "Even Delaware? What was that like?" "Ask my parents," he retorted. "They took me there when I was four."
