A trip to southern Italy III

Day 3

"She is so beautiful, she needs three men!"

This is what a Naples dress shop owner said about Jarmila as we browsed through his wares.

I wasn't present when he said it, else I would've said this one man is more than she can handle, or something similarly macho.

But the ladies in that store simply fawned over Jarmila, bringing dress after dress for her to try on. She even modelled dresses that she herself didn't like because the ladies just wanted to see how she looked in them – their Barbie doll brought to life.

The store was one that Giovanna frequents, and as a matter of logistics Jarmila and I were accompanying her before she dropped us off at the port for the ferry ride down to Amalfi.

In the end, Jarmila bought a cool and unique dress that she'll always have as a souvenir. Unfortunately for me, the men's section was pitiful, which I think is a recurring theme in Neapolitan shops – they cater to the women, with the men being an afterthought.

After the dress store, Giovanna had to run an errand so we split up and agreed to meet at the car. Ten minutes later we got back to the car and a Sri Lankan man was standing there waiting for us. He told us there was a problem with out car, and sure enough, there were scratches, scrapes, and large dents on the rear of Giovanna's auto.

We nervously waited – our ferry was leaving soon, and we were concerned about the car as well – until Giovanna arrived. We showed her the dents but she waved them off, saying, "Those are old. No problem!"

(Indeed, the Napolese are so disarmingly unconcerned about their cars because fender benders there are exceedingly common. In fact, on the first day as we taxied to Giovanna's, our driver ground the front fender of his new taxi into a parked car. Of course he cursed, but it was of such little concern for him that he didn't even leave a note on the car he had dented and scratched so badly.)

We caught the ferry with time to spare.