Unfortunate Ugly Underbelly

I love Italy. I love all things Italian - the language, food, art… It’s in my blood, literally. But, let’s be honest about the Italian dark side. I’m not referring to politics (Mussolini, Berlusconi) or religion (oh, those Pompous Popes that instigated Protestanism). I’m referring to the common everyday ugliness that one chooses to ignore, instead focusing on beautiful architecture and delicious cuisine. Our first week in Italy has been nagged by a confusing, frustrating and expensive phone fiasco (we swap the SIM card in our iphones with an Italian one). I’ll spare you the details, but we finally made a trip to Vodafone (our Italian service provider) to clear things up. Clear, no; but hopefully fixed. Entering the Vodafone store, I noticed an increasingly common sight of obsolete technology serving new technology. Appropriately located by a cell phone store, a nearby abandoned brick smokestack was repurposed as a cell tower.
I forewarn you about the second, much uglier unfortunate underbelly item (extra photo), so don’t look if you get queasy easy. My #1 pet peeve is smoking and my #2 pet peeve is littering. The Italians combine both. Empty cigarette packets litter sidewalks, roadways, and mountain paths. It is disgusting. Cigarette smoking is ubiquitous. Also disgusting. Although outlawed INSIDE public places like stores and trains, one must traverse a gauntlet of smokers puffing at the entrance and windows of these places. In an effort to curb the rise in cigarette smoking, the Italian Government plasters each packet with dire warnings and blatant color photos of the horrors caused by smoking, including a toll-free number (verde numero) to call to get help to stop smoking. This campaign seems to have failed miserably, instead making the ugly habits of smoking and littering just uglier. Stop. I will end my rant, but FYI, I have a growing collection of cigarette packet photos…way too many.