Gas strikes...

Today, they announced on the news that there is to be a gas strike throughout Italy. I think it is in protest of the G8 Summit being held in L'Aquile (the citta' where the earthquake was in March or April). Anyway, the strike started yesterday I believe and will continue until 7 am tomorrow.

Bad news for me is that I am running on less than a 1/4 of a tank of gas. I am supposed to pick up our missionary friend, Angie, her 2 daughers and Pam, the church intern for an afternoon on base and bowling. Whoops!

The only time I was out to get gas though was on Tuesday. And Tuesday after the huge storm that rolled through I was in a hurry to get home. I needed to be here between 1 and 5 for the temporary government furniture to be picked up. They didn't show up until 3:30 pm and I never left the house again.

Wasn't planning on being out yesterday but the opportunity for Jared to be in a commercial called and so we left. On my way home yesterday all the gas stations I saw had a sign out by the street that said "chiuso" which means closed. The OMV down the street looked to be open but I didn't stop to gas up.

Fortunately for me, we have a brand new gas can full of gas for the lawn mower. It has been used to put gas in the mower two times and holds 10 liters. So, I used that this morning to put some more fuel in my tank. If it weren't for the bowling etc I would just have waited until tomorrow but...I had already promised Angie and company that I would come and pick them up for the day since Titus is out on a church camping trip for the week and she is without a car.

Anyway, lesson learned. When in a foreign country - never let your car run below 1/2 tank. I knew this in Germany and this is mainly due to the long staus (traffic jams) that you would run in to. No kidding, sitting in your car with no place to exit the highway for hours on end. We once sat in a stau at the Brenner Pass, just out of the mountains from Germany and Austria into Italy, for over 2 hours. We were in view of a McDonald's but we couldn't get to it. No exits, no shoulder to pull over on, nothing. So, now I know, the Italians may not have long traffic jams but they do have gas strikes quite often I am learning.

Got to run. Need to finish up some schooling we didn't do because of all the moving, unpacking, etc.