Recently, Italy's new Prime Minister, Monti, and his cabinet passed some laws which deregulated the trucking industry in Italy as well as imposed a new tax on gasoline and diesel. The tax on diesel is 11.2 centi ($0.148) per liter is equal to about $0.60 per gallon! I mean, that is a really crazy tax, in Italy's defense. To show their disapproval, the independent truckers of Italy went on strike and blocked the toll booths up and down the Autostrada, from Milan to Sicily. I'm sure my information is slightly skewed, as I'm reading the news in somewhat broken Italian to English translation on Google, but that's the gist of it.
Photo Credit:http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/12/12/us-italy-strike-idUSL1246768420071212
Occupy Wall Street has nothing on Italian truckers. They take protesting up a notch.
The protest began on Monday, Jan 23rd and involved pretty much everyone that doesn't live directly on or off the Tangenziale, the private toll highway that runs through Naples, to be delayed for hours in traffic. Reports started to trickle in. "Did you hear about the strike?" "They say it's supposed to last 5 days." "They are shutting down the mail because it can't get here from Rome." "Gas is starting to run out." "There's no fresh fruit or veggies getting into Naples." As the week progressed, all of these rumors started to move from rumor to reality. On Tuesday, trying to get into our gas station parking lot was nearly impossible. Cars lined the streets, wrapping up and down our street. We finally just put the car in park and the guys said they would move it when they could. The next morning, our car was moved but signs were up at the AGIP letting people know that they were out of gas.
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Signs like these popped up at gas stations all over Italy. Two days of strikes and gas stations were bone dry. Ours has not reopened yet. While a deal was reached and the protest has apparently been called off, the repercussions are still being felt here. Gas stations, when they are open, have long lines and are limiting how much you can get. We spent 45 minutes last night getting 20 liters in our little Civic.
The importance of fuel has never been more apparent to me than now. The fact that gas in Italy is now close to $9/gallon makes me realize how lucky America is and then makes me feel guilty when I complained about the $4.32/gallon cost in San Diego. Compared to the rest of the world, we're living on easy street!
At dinner last night, we tried to order the mixed appetizer platter only to discover that they only had prosciutto and "pseudo-mozzarella." It turns out, pseudo-mozzarella is smoked mozzarella and not quite as delicious. However, we don't have any fresh fruits or veggies in our house and these is nary a carton of milk to be found. I'm taking my vitamins to help prevent the scurvy.
The other annoyance is that our new driver's side window is sitting somewhere between Norfolk, VA, Rome and here. Because mail couldn't get in or out of Rome, we've also not received mail this week. Some day we'll have all of our car windows again. And when we do, my co-worker, Diego, has offered to write me a note that I am to stick in the back of the car which will reading in Italian "The door's open. Take what you want, but please don't break my window." Diego is also the one who noted, "We were out of gas for 3 days, it just makes you wonder, if something really bad happens, like a war, what are we ever going to do?" Non lo so...
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