Name:
Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Couple more things to mention about Rome. It is easily the most complicated and dangerous city to drive in. There are no traffic lines or traffic lights for that matter and almost every street is a one-way street that’s about 100 feet in diameter. There are also little motorbikes that go anywhere they want in the city and have no rules apply to them. The tour guide told us 10 people die a week on motorbikes within the city every week. I'm not sure what these people are thinking. Second, Rome is absurdly expensive. For example, granted it was in a restaurant outside of Trevvi Fountain, I paid the equivalent of $12 for a cup of tortellini that was reheated in a microwave right before I got it. Also, a double cheeseburger is $3 euro at McDonalds, there's no dollar menu here. Lastly, this gypsy thing is pretty overrated. I saw only one gypsy; I guess you could call her. We were eating lunch outside of the Vatican and this old lady, dressed in all black, shaking, desperately holding on to her cane to hold her up (she basically looked like the old lady in thinner) and she came over to our table and said something we could not distinguish but was clearly asking for money. We said no but she wouldn’t leave and kept saying something and kept showing us a picture of Mary like that was going to persuade us to give her money. Eventually after she wouldn’t leave mike threw her a euro coin and eventually she left and went on to the next table. Eventually one of the waiters at the restaurant came out and saw her and yelled something at her, with that she miraculously started to walk fine and briskly strolled across the street to another restaurant. I was not impressed with the gypsies.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jacob,

great to see your blog, it makes me miss my adventures in Europe. Have any of the commies over there tried to debate with you yet? Have you found somewhere to watch the super bowl? Are the Italians easy to meet? When I was in Spain, I found it difficult to meet Spaniards but let me give you some advice. Find an Italian girl in your class, sit down next to her, and proceed to put on display of how lost you are and can't follow the class, she will help you out. Continue this for a week. Then try to find out if she is learning and wants to practice english. Strike a deal that you will help her with English and she will help you Italian outside of class. Congrats, you have yourself an intercambia (thats what we called it in Spain, I don't know what it is in Italian). It is the fastest route to fluency and a great immersion technique. Careful though, Italian girls are crazy.

7:12 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home