Trouble in the Hood

I think up till now I have neglected to mention that the neighborhood that we live in is not exactly the best. Tal and some of the other girls have been a bit more concerned than me regarding the loitering and activities that take place. The corner by our building is the late night hang out of the African drug dealers. They loiter around all day blocking the sidewalk and drinking beer. In the evening they are usually up to no good of some sort. I’m well aware that they wouldn’t dare bother any of us because it would mean big problems with the police. The police and Italian people already dislike the Africans here, mess with another European living in Torino or an international student, and you might as well right your own jail term.

Today for lack of anything better to do I went with Tal to the architectural campus located in Castello di Valentino. This is the major palace on the outskirts of the downtown area along the river Po to the south. It is a wonderful building on the outside, even more impressive than the palace in Darmstadt. I’ll post a picture of it when I get a chance.

Anyways, to get there we walked up to the tram that goes straight to the palace. At the same stop a group of shady looking Africans and Arabs got on the tram. Tall felt a bit uncomfortable so we moved several seats forward. It shortly became obvious that they were dealing drugs. From the look of it to me it was packets of cocaine. Tal says she saw someone make a sniffing motion from their hand and then the African spit something white into his hand. This only confirms my thought. Aside from the drug deal everything was fine although a bit noise at times. Eventually though a fight broke out between two of the guys, which caused all of the other passengers to move forward in the tram as quick as possible. Soon thereafter the beer bottle that one of the guys had ended up cracked over the others head followed by a stream of beer and blood. The tram driver stopped the tram and everyone else got off. The two guys also jumped off and started fighting their way down the street. Everyone else got back on, and we went the rest of the way.

In two weeks here I’ve seen just about everything with the exception of someone stupid enough to try and pick pocket me. Although I’ve not been hit yet by them, I have heard about several other international students that have already had things stolen at the Murazzi. They’ll learn with time how to protect yourself against such things.