Zach v. Europe, round 6: Rome

I’m about to leave Rome, in eight hours or so to be precise, for Barcelona. I have a Euro or so left on my prepaid card for this internet cafe, so I figured I’d better spend it. It’s not like I’m going to be back in Rome before it expires (knock on wood).

A lot of stuff has happened in Rome, but I don’t really have time to go into it in detail at the moment. I have plans for the semi-distant future to write an essay about each major city I visit (ie: What Rome was Like) and post the salient bits to this very website, but in the meantime the following rant will have to suffice.

Elaine Kirchner reminds us: “Heaven is where the police are British, the cooks are French, the mechanics German, the lovers Italian and it’s all organised by the Swiss. Hell is where the chefs are British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss, the police German and it’s all organised by the Italians.” Pay attention to that last bit, and guess where the body of this post goes.

The first encounter I had with Italian organization was driving through Treiste, a little town in the northeast corner of the country literally surrounded by Slovenia. Walter was driving the boxy white van he’d rented, and I was trying quite unsuccessfully to navigate. We drove through the city three times trying to get back into Slovenia, our final destination, before finally succeeding, and then only with Kelly and I both studying the map and yelling directions at Walter. We’d see a sign with “Slovenia” written on it, as well as the name of the city we were heading to, pointing to the right. “OK, we’ll just go right, then.” Then, when the presumed exit approached, we’d see an identical sign with the arrow pointing straight ahead. “Ok… we’ll go straight.” Then there would be no further signs for Slovenia. After figuring out the proper exit and getting off the highway, things got even worse: the directional signs would actually be posted after the turn they described. We were so lost.

My first night in Rome, I stepped off the train with a one-paragraph description of how to get to my hostel that I’d copied off a website. According to the website, it takes about 5 minutes from the train station to walk. It took me half an hour. I’m not stupid by any stretch of the imagination, and I certainly know how to follow a set of directions comprising three turns. I asked four different people for help, and finally, an old man I kept inadvertently poking in the crotch with the neck of my guitar told me the right street. The street signs don’t agree with one another – they’ll say one name on one side of the intersection, another on the wall of the buildings, and another on the other side. Toss in the popular “Piazza Someitalianplace” signs, and it gets a little dicey. Until I managed to get ahold of a good map, I was in a world of hurt.

Trying to take the subway last night was even more baffling. The machine from which you buy tickets has an array of buttons that are numbered for your convenience – in the wrong order. I’m serious. If you follow the directions, it doesn’t give you a ticket. You also have to pay attention to the small print, which informs you that the maximum change given – even from a €20 note purchasing a €1 ticket – is €4. And every time you push a button, the whole thing beeps at around 220 dB, loud enough to really, really hurt your ears, as if they’re punishing you for using the service.

Once you’ve navigated the hostile waters of ticket purchase, things don’t get any easier, sadly. We were trying to take the A Line to Barberini, but we didn’t know which direction to get on, and of course there weren’t any maps handy, so we asked a number of officials if we were going the right way. “Barberini! Si, si! That way!” They directed us not only to the wrong side of the tracks, but to the wrong line, line B. When we realized our mistake and got off at the next stop to turn around, we tried explaining to the subway officials there what had happened so we could use our ticket again. “Barberini! Si, si!” they said when we had finished, beckoning us to get back onto the train. “Look, we just explained to you that this train doesn’t go to Barberini! What are you trying to do to us?!” I fumed after we were safely out of earshot. When we finally arrived to the station we wanted, there were a series of signs pointing left, right, and straight with various street names written on them perched above little doorways. All the doorways merged led into the same hallway, which turned left. Unbelievable.

This morning, I wandered the train station for a full twenty minutes, following signs all the while, before I found baggage storage. It’s not a huge train station. I swear I made three laps of it, following a different set of tunnels or hallways everytime, all of them claiming “baggage storage straight ahead”.

So Rome has been pretty rad, minus the above rant. All the hostels in Barcelona are full according to the latest web technology, so tomorrow will be an adventure as well. I’ll check back again when I once more have minutes to burn.