Sono a Napoli

Ciao Tutti,

I arrived in Napoli at 10:30 AM and headed to my hostel immediately.  The directions on the hostel's website said that I should take the tram #1 towards the "Stazione Meridionale".  Unfortunately, the trams going both ways said "Stazione Meridionale".  After about 10 minutes of indecisiveness with a few other Italians heading in the same direction,  we finally found someone that knew where we wanted to go - simply by the water.  I honestly have no idea why it was that hard to find someone that could help us.  I suppose there are too many tourists in Napoli by the train station.

My hostel is right off the road that runs parallel to the water on the seventh floor of an apartment building.  Yes, there is an elevator.  The security was pretty good - you have to ring a bell to get into the building as well as to get into the actual hostel.  After dropping my stuff off, I headed straight for the port for a boat to Capri.  

I am currently on the boat and it is flying.  They call the boat a hydrofoil.  Let me just say that it is a good thing that I do not get seasick.  The boat is bouncing up and down every few seconds. For me, it's relaxing. For the people next to me, not so much.

So far, Naples was exactly as I remembered it.  Dirty.  Very dirty.  Garbage is everywhere.  It would be okay if the city had a bit more charm, but I have yet to find it.  The people in Naples seem to be the coldest people I've met in all of Italy.  No one wants to help, at least it seems to be that way.  In Reggio di Calabria as well as all the cities in the north, everyone seems like they want to help, they want to have a conversation, and most of them seem to actually be genuine.  

I did have quite an experience on the tram to my hostel from the train station.  The people came on board to check if everyone had a ticket.  I did, don't worry, but other people did not.  There was one old lady screaming at the man as if he had just murdered her son. She was relentless.  The whole tram heard her.  Then, the guy a few seats behind me assaulted the ticket taker's occupation.  He asked him what kind of a job is this and asked him if he is happy with what he does. The man went on to ask if the ticket taker enjoyed hurting people.  It was quite the scene.  All in all, they caught about seven or eight people.  Thank God that I paid the whopping €1.20 for my ticket.   

While I have time to write, I figured that I would also write about the things I've noticed in terms of the Neapolitan clothing and hair. It's hard not to notice it.  I've seen some pretty short shorts on some of the teenage guys.  As if they weren't short enough, a few of them rolled the short shorts up!  Then, they had pretty weird hair - kind of like a Mohawk, but it extends over their face.  Quite interesting.  Then there is the women.  They wear some of the most inappropriate shirts with sayings on them in English.  Some, that I can actually write down, were "Follow me back to my house", "No boyfriend, no problem", and "You're hot, why not?". I saw all of those within five minutes of each other today.  It seems like Naples has a completely different culture.  I know that America is a bit conservative when it comes to things like that, but I was surprised to see such strange things .

I'll update on the boat ride back with details about my adventure on Capri!

Ciao,
Michele