THE CITY PARK

Montichiari has a beautiful park...well, several, but the one in the center of town is the best. It's got a great play area for the kids, lots of green lawns on rolling hills, and a little cafè hut in the middle.

I went with the dog today at noon, and there was not ONE SINGLE ITALIAN in the park. The foreigners have taken it over, but I'm not saying that in a bad way. They bring their children to play, and they sit and visit on the grass. They don't cause disturbances or anything, for the most part. If it's just the moms it's pretty much ok.

But the Italians have silently chosen to stay away, as to not mingle with these people they don't want in their town. So the more foreigners come, the more the Italians stay away.

The problem starts in the evening when the cafè turns into a bar and alcohol is served, and the husbands of the moms who were at the park earlier with their kids come and start drinking. It's mainly the Romanians, Russians and Albanians who drink. But I see more and more Northern Africans (Tunisians, Moroccans and Algerians) who are getting drunk. I've not noticed any Black Africans or Pakistani drinking there.

But it turns into an atmosphere that's uncomfortable.

Today while I was sitting on the wall in the sun, three 14 year old Albanian girls came up to me and asked if I had a cigarette. I told them no, that I don't smoke. And the walked away mimicking me saying "Woo hoo, I don't smoke." Seriously? I wanted to grab them and put my 41 year old face in theirs and say "Guess what? I'm only 22. I smoked since I was 14 and this is how I look now."

But then I thought, "Who the FUCK really cares? I care about a lot, sometimes way TOO much, but this? This I don't care about." Let them smoke, let them pretend to be cool and attractive with their cigarettes at 14. THAT is not my problem.

I've just had it with this place. Italians bitch and moan because of all the non-Italians in their country, yet the pseudo-communist party continues letting them come. Then the pseudo-commies go out in the streets and riot because there's no work. Well, DUH, you just gave your jobs away, dumbshits. Keep letting people who WANT to work come in and you won't have a job.  You cannot have it all.

And they let them (us---I'm not Italian, either) come to live here, but they won't allow any type of integration, as seen by the shunning of a really nice park. I've always taken my daughter there to play. I think it's good for her to play with kids from other countries, but they form groups based on where they come from and they can be really mean to the little half American, half Italian kid.

So now we avoid it, too.

If you want the definition of conundrum, the above explains it pretty well.