Chocolate and Chaos

Yesterday was delicious. Yes, delicious. I hopped on a train with the roommates to Perugia, the capitol of the region Umbria, which is famous for it's chocolate. Every year for they host EuroChocolate, a GIANT international open air festival centered around chocolate. There are thousands of vendors, a million visitors, and more chocolate than is easily conceivable. We arrived and were amazed. I ate a lot of free samples, bought a lot of not so free chocolate goodies, and ate a Nutella-filled cornetto (croissant). We also bought the local lunch standard, porchetta, which is sliced wild boar, served panino-style. It was incredibly tasty. Perugia is, also, gorgeous, so the day was amazing overall. 

When we got back to Roma, dragging ourselves out of the Termini train station to wait for our bus home, we saw a lot of Carabinieri. (They're like cops, but all they do is keep the peace and control tourists. The equivalent of traffic cops are the polizia.) There were also news crews and helicopters. We continued to see Carabinieri everywhere on our bus ride home, and even a Carabinieri van badly burnt on the street. Naturally we were confused and looked up the news when we got home. The Global Occupy movement has come to Roma, a city that likes to protest and strike at any opportunity. (I've encountered 3 public transit strikes, a protest of firemen, and several political protests in the past 3 weeks.) The initially peaceful protest was co-opted by anarchists and became a full-out riot. Shop windows were smashed, tear gas was used, cars were lit on fire, Molotov cocktails flew...Rome really was burning,from   Termini (the second busiest train depot in Europe) down Via Cavour (a main drag through the city) to Piazza Venezia (one of the biggest piazze, and an always crowded area). Several people were badly injured and hospitalized, but thankfully no one died. It was striking to watch news coverage of a city on fire after having just crossed it via bus. I've never been so close to that kind of event before. It's both scary and exciting; the world is really fed up with the status quo, and people across the first world are fighting back. It really is turning into a global movement. I think that's kind of cool, but I also worry that other cities will follow Rome's violent example, not to mention that I worry about friends in Chicago; CPD has started arresting some protesters there, and I have several friends heavily involved in the Occupy Chicago movement. Hopefully the "99%" will manage to get their message across without causing too much damage to their cities or to themselves. That being said, I agree with the message of the movement and am interested to see what will happen in the coming weeks. Be safe, everyone.