Blending in...

Finally back in the UK, and in my own comfortable bed tonight.... But on reflection, it's been a good week in Italy. I was mistaken for an Italian four times this week in Napoli. People kept coming up to me and gabbling away in Italian... it's like another country...or London. Perhaps I am blending in with the locals, or maybe it's because Italians are naturally friendly and don' care who they talk to ...? Here are 10 things you should do if you want to be mistaken for a local in Napoli:

1) Get a tan
2) Talk Italian (Although this is not entirely essential - I assure you I can't)
3) Always wear sunglasses, even at night
4) Talk with exaggerated arm waving and hand movements
5) Look nonchalent
6) Walk across the road without really looking (they will stop for you, or swerve to avoid you)
7) Ride a moped without a helmet on, but with at least one girl on the back
8) Don't drive a car, aim it
9) Drive with your horn, not with your brakes
10) Hold a mobile phone to your ear at all times, and a cigarette in the other hand

See Naples and blog

Well, now I know the difference between a piazza and a pizza. Not a lot - they are both expensive and difficult to get through/across. Only difference is that a piazza is square and a pizza is round (except on EasyJet flights where they actually sell square pizzas - shame on them). Well, here I am in Napoli, home of the pizza, a place that is at once both beautiful and horrific. It's beautiful because the Amalfi coast, Vesuvius, Sorento, Capri, and the Bay of Naples are all naturally beautiful, scenic and the names evocative of romance and amore. It's horrific (at least where I'm staying, in and around Piazza Garibaldi) because there is garbage piled high everywhere you look, and hookers and addicts loitering on the seedy street corners outside my hotel. Must have chosen the wrong place to stay, and reminds me of a week I spent in Copenhagen a few years back.

I'm here in Napoli for the EDEN 2007 Conference, held at the Citta della Scienza (City of Science) which is not a city at all, more a repurposed complex of factory warehouses. It's ugly on the outside, very pleasant inside..... (don't). It took me over an hour to get there from the centre of Napoli today. I spent the day with my mate Palitha Edirisingha seeing the sights of Pompeii, before a long walk, dodging the taxis and scooters to the metro, a metro ride (where we were crammed like sardines inside an overheated and airless compartment for almost an hour) and then a bus ride (where we were crammed like sardines inside an overheated and airless compartment) for a few miles more. Citta della Scienza is 'off the beaten track' I would say, and many delegates arrived tonight for registration and the opening welcome party 'hot under the collar'. Not a good start, EDEN. Let's hope the content is a little better than the location.....