Wednesday, June 17, 2009

It Finally Happened

We have been joking that, on account of the ridiculously narrow streets, myriad parked cars everywhere in places where they don't really fit, crazy Italian drivers, and extremely narrow sidewalks, one of us was going to get hit by a car at some point during this trip.

Before anyone gets freaked out (particularly families), everyone is okay.

So we were leaving our flat on Via Della Chiesa, which is one of the more narrow streets with cars lining one side, making it even more crammed. The cars and motorcycles often park partly over the sidewalk, which is only about 2 feet wide to begin with.

As we walked, we saw a big truck coming, about the equivalent of a dump truck, slowly up the street. It seemed to be moving a bit more quickly than might be appropriate. As it got to us, there was a loud crash and Johnny yelped. At that moment, Johnny became one of the few people in the world ever to have been hit by a parked motorcycle.

The truck smashed the front end of the bike, spending it spinning directly into Johnny's hip. Hopefully, we were due that one, and we won't get hit by anything else. We have been dangerously close to getting knocked in the head by bus side mirrors on several occasions already.

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