Huh ???
What happened ? The last thing that I knew it was Thursday and now it’s Saturday. Oh yeah; it’s starting to come back to me now. That’s right; yesterday I got up to find an ATM and an internet cafe. I noticed that there were buses running in the streets and hoped that perhaps the transit strike was over. I went to the tabbachieri at the train station and asked, ” Il metro, funzioni ?” The woman responded, ” Possible autobus; no metro.” As it had been raining, the cobblestones had been slippery on the sidewalks. I had slipped off of two of them and almost twisted my ankle each time. So the chances of me safely walking to the Borgese Museum seemed bad. I strolled out of the Termini wondering what I was going to do.
Suddenly all of the buses in the neighborhood pulled into the side entrances of the station; stopped, and began blowing their horns. I continued walking to get away from the noise. Then, I saw a mass of about 400 people holding red flags and blocking the front exits of this multimodal train station, the biggest one in Rome. They were carrying huge signs and were blocking traffic on the four lane street in front of the station. One of the demonstrators handed me a manifesto entitled, ” La rivoluzione e la festa degli oppressi e degli sfruttati” There was a speaker truck broadcasting loud, italian, rock music. There was a female speaker who must have had a wireless mic, shouting over the music in a rather angry tone of voice. Then a platoon of about thirty police officers came running up blowing their whistles ! Then the female speaker started shouting, ” Basta! Basta! Basta!” Then a couple of smoke bombs went off, for what purpose, I don’t know. I was wondering if the smoke bombs were tear gas, but I didn’t feel like sticking around to sniff. I left the area as fast as the slippery cobblestones would take me.
Incidentally, I took photos of all of this. Since my camera is of the analog variety, the photos will not be ready until this whole episode is over and forgotten. Wasn’t there a transit strike in France last week ?
Power to the transit workers; right on !
I.C.