August 16, 2008.

It wasn’t Naples’ best day. Trash collectors had been on strike for obviously too long. At this point there was just nowhere to go with it all. Heaping piles of trash reflected poorly on an otherwise proud and beautiful town.

A Naples taxi driver was stopped at a light. Embarrassingly, his passengers looked out the window and spied rats atop a pile of garbage, contentedly rooting through leftover spaghetti. Yes, it was flat out disgusting.

In broken English, the cabbie explained to his American passengers that Naples wasn’t normally like this. Broken English? No, this wasn’t Naples, Florida. This was Naples, Italy.

In fact, Judy and I were the American passengers. Silently we were happy that this wasn’t happening in the Naples we know and love. For as much as we were enjoying Italy, it would be good to be back home.