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Published: August 2nd 2012
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Rome will punish your taint. It’s crazy hot and you walk for miles and miles. Oh, and Spanish and Italian are the same language, don’t let anyone tell you differently. If you speak Spanish you are also fluent in Italian, I spoke it constantly in Italy and never had any problems. So KABOOM, tri-lingual. One nice thing is that saying “while in Rome” justifies all manner of gluttony. They told us we’d be waiting at least an hour (if we made a reservation), more likely around three or four to get into the Vatican Museums. We walked right in. Something about them thinking we were Brangelina. Not sure what they thought we did with our litter of six. Something you need to be on guard for at all times while in Italy are gypsies. They’re very talented thieves, so much so that one of them stole my genitals. This is apparently a common problem as nearly all the statues are sans gennys. I imagine there’s some sort of gypsy prince somewhere sitting on a mountain of stone genitals. We were warned to be especially careful of people who were seemingly disabled. It’s nice that the gypsies have even managed to steal
people’s natural compassion for the handicapped. I’m actually glad someone told us that or it would have seemed really strange to see a cop power shove a “crippled old woman” to the ground outside the Coliseum. I’ve taken to following suit and have just been blasting handicapped people out of their wheelchairs, Forest Gump leg braces, whatever. Thus far they’ve all turned out to be actually handicapped but one of these days they’ll be a gypsy, I can’t stop now. What if Thomas Edison had stopped inventing things because his first few inventions didn’t work? One problem with travelling in any country is ordering food when you have no idea what things are. At one point I ordered what seemed to be a scallop in lemon sauce (I only assumed it was this because in the English translation under the description it said “scallop in lemon sauce”). Turns out it was some sort of boiled veal in lemon sauce giving rise to the phrase “I’ve been scalloped” when something you order turns out to be something very different, and much more disgusting than what you thought you were ordering. Italians like to cuddle guinea pigs. That’s not a metaphor. Our
Rome hotel was full of a few too many drunk Brits and too few air conditioners. Rome is also home to the saddest midgets I’ve ever seen. I hadn’t heard that the Italians were raging anti-midgites but if these little fellas’ faces were any indicator they are. We were mistaken for Italians constantly while there, mostly because of Maria’s Princess of Monaco looks and my Joey Tribiani man purse I’m guessing. It’s true that coffee in Italy is amazing, especially at McDonalds. I’m not sure if Americans are the most retarded travelers or just the ones I understand the best. Maybe everyone is making those same dumbass comments. The gelato is also amazing in Italy, try the pistachio McFlurry. Maria said the Basilica wasn’t that impressive and she immediately got sick. Lesson to be learned is to not disparage the Catholics’ most impressive church or they’ll strike you down. Spanish Steps? More like Spanish skip a step. Lots of the things that you “have to see” in Rome are very miss-able unless you are some sort of Roman Holiday fanatic. Throw out your notions of what an Italian looks like, they’re just as likely to be a 2
ndgeneration Nigerian or
Vietnamese immigrant as they are to be the stereotype. On that note, all legit Italians look like Don Omar/Pit Bull (who may look totally different but I’m not sure which is which) to me. Stay away from grappa (Italian moon shine). I took one drink and started having nightmares and I wasn’t even asleep. It gave me a withered arm. You can’t skip Rome because of the historical stuff, but it was both of our least favorite part of Italy. On the train to Florence we were sitting with a Russian immigrant and her baby who was laughing up a storm, loving the attention. A German woman a few seats back asked me if I could get the baby to stop laughing because it was disturbing her. I realize that Germans tend to be humorless, I had no idea that baby laughter hurt their souls. The train from Florence to Verona introduced us to a dirt-nasty, garbage-eating gypsy who tried to rip us off. He had an “official nametag” that looked like it was made by a baby writing with his off hand. If that wasn’t clue enough, it was pinned to a poop smeared, ripped t-shirt which he wore
over his trash bag pants. The worst part is the tourists in the next car gave him 20 Euros. That’ll buy him a lot of huffing glue. Other train adventures include sitting next to a tophatted topless unicycling gypsy street performer and jumping the train home because the ticket booths were closed. Florence is amazing, I didn’t even really understand why it was such a great place to visit before going. I get it now. Verona and the wine country are great as well. Pisa’s tower is surprisingly impressive, even more so because it’s falling over, I’ll admit to expecting to be underwhelmed. I had the best raviolis of my life in Florence. Venice is magical, stay the night when the cruise ship people leave. We were rich enough to afford a gondola ride but ghetto enough to bring our own bottle of champagne. It was the highlight of the trip. It’s expensive but spend the money. To get to Venice’s airport you have to find the bus station Oscar the grouch and knock on his dumpster. He’ll sell you shuttle tickets.
Song: Any old Dean Martin would do but I’d go with Innamorata (Sweetheart)
Trevi Fountain
I may have thrown a coin in but I doubt I'll be back to Rome, maybe for a connecting flight to the north. Movie: We watched some of Land of the Lost in Italian. Some movies are better when you can’t really understand the dialogue.
Book: I’ve always come down heavily on the side of fantasy in the great sci-fi vs. fantasy debate (which defines our lifetime really) but this is an excellent book. Vernor Vinge’s A Deepness in the Sky.
Italian saying: Cuidado! Los gitanos! Guarda sus genitales! Which translates into: Look out! Gypsies! Hide your genitals*
Off to Paris,
~T
Why is everyone rushin’ (Russian) I thought we were in Rome? ~ Hot Canadian girl I overheard in Rome discussing everyone’s propensity to be in a ridiculous hurry all the time.
Can you get the baby to stop laughing, we Germans hate the sound and whole idea of laughter. ~ German lady on the train
Mrs Berman told me a legend about gypsies i never heard before: "they stole the nails from the roman soldiers who were about to crucify Jesus," she said. "when the soldiers looked for the nails they had disappeared mysteriously.
Statue
Whose had his penis stolen by the gypsies. gypsies had stolen them, and jesus and the crowd had to wait until the soldiers sent for new nails. after that, god almighty gave permission to all gypsies to steal all they could." she pointed to the bloated gypsy queen. "she believed the story, all gypsies do." ~Bluebeard, Kurt Vonnegut **
*Yes I wrote that in Spanish, but find me one Italian speaker who doesn’t understand what that says and I’ll pay you a lira.
** I actually put this quote in one of my earliest blogs but it's fitting so here it is again.
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Jeni
non-member comment
Why
Do you have to shorten Genitals to Genny?