I almost died again today on the Tangenziale, which is the main highway running through Napoli and I'm pretty sure means "highway of death" in Italian. A friend of mine, we'll call him "Burt," has duty tonight but his car won't start so I picked him up and drove him to work. On the way there, I was cruising on into the Telepass lane at the tollboth (like the Fastlane or EZ-pass lanes for those of you from MA and NY, respectively), when the car in front of me just slams on his brakes. Now mind you, there's no gate on most of the Telepass lanes, so it's not like he was about to slam into it or something. He just decided to stop because the light was red, and he was going to reverse out of that lane. Fortunately the brakes are the one part of my car that works well. Me and the driver behind me were just yelling for him to go on through (me in English, him in Italian), but he didn't, so the guy behind me backed out, and I backed out (and into the guardrail next to the tollboth, incidentally) and went into the next lane. And then once both of us had backed out, the guy who had stopped just decided to go through anyway in the lane he was already in.

Speaking of "Burt," it's too bad he has watch this weekend. I have a pretty good setup going with him and his wife, "Julie." They live in a nice little downtown area with a lot of restaraunts and bars within walking or short driving distance. So over the last couple of months we've developed a good system where we'll go hang out for the evening, either at dinner, or at a bar, or both. And usually we end up consuming a good amount of "Burt" and "Julie's" liquor cabinet. And then I crash in their guestroom, which has a very comfortable mattress. And then when I get up in the morning, "Julie" makes omelettes and turkey bacon for "Burt" and me. And then I go home. It's really a pretty good arrangement.