Middle of the night in Pescara

There is a huge thunderstorm happening here in the middle of the night and it is lovely after all the heat, I think yesterday is the first day I haven't sweated since arriving in Italy - god it was hot when I first arrived in Rome.  That seems like forever ago!

I like it here in Pescara, it is nothing like the older cities or towns but being at the beach again is nice.  One of the first things I ask another female in a new town is if it is safe for a female to walk around at night on her own, so far Perugia was the only place I was told no so I used to be home by dark.  I asked at the restaraunt I had delicious gnocchi with scampi sauce for dinner last night if it was safe for me to walk back here on my own, si si si, yes yes yes.  Then when I left the restaurant I was soon reminded it was Italy, the streets were absolutely packed, everyone goes out at night, there were more people on the streets than when I first arrived in the afternoon. 

I had a bit of a culture shock getting off the train at Bologna, after being in Monterchi all the people around snapped me back to attention, hand on the bag again.  I love the history of the bigger places but not all the people.  When I get to Naples I will have to have my wits about me!  I'm not sure if I will stay in the middle of Rome again at the end of this journey, I am thinking I might stay  a couple of bus stops out, will work that out in the next week or so.

I have felt uncomfortable a few times, once in Perugia where I had to shake a revoltig man who was following me, I knew he had spotted me the minute I walked in to the piazza and knew straight away he was following me so made sure there were plenty of people around me and backtracked a bit but he still followed me so I stopped and sat on a seat where there were other people and he had to keep walking.  When I eventually got up to walk off again I made sure he wasn't following me.

Then yesterday in Arezzo after I dropped the car back I had an hour to kill so went for a walk to the duomo at the top of the town, when I was walking back down to the station there was a guy on the other side of the lane but he was watching me in the window of the shops and each time I stopped to get a bit of distance between us, he stopped and looked in shop windows so he could see me.  At one stage he looked at me so I just turned around and walked back up the hill again, it would have been too obvious for him to turn around too, plus there were cops in the direction I was heading.

Again yesterday when I got on the train at Bologna there was an absolutely revolting man sitting in my seat, when I got to him he was leering and had a cigarette hanging out of his gob the whole way and he was absolutely revolting so when I saw he was in my seat I just sat in another seat.  I figured when the ticket man came if there was a drama about the seat I was in he could sort out disgusting cigarette creep.

Apart from those three creeps haven't been too bad and I have felt safe.  I have leered at a few and am sure I have made them feel uncomfortable though!