but shame about all the Romans! (Rome Part II)

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Oh my giddy aunt! But WHAT IS THEIR PROBLEM?! PLEASE GIVE ME A PARISIAN! Oh for some of that ole Parisian friendliness… Honestly, these Romans can be sooooooo rude. I had some hardcore rudeness in Milan too, and I remember that when I travelled around Italy when I 20, I found rude people all over the place (back then my refrain was “Italy, beautiful country… shame about all the Italians”). So I’m not saying that Romans have got a monopoly on rudeness in Italy, oh no, just that I need to exclude my Calabrian friend and Puglian friend from this rudeness stereotype. (Actually, I believe my boss is Roman and she’s one of the loveliest women I’ve ever met.) And museum staff seem to take a particular pride in being unsmiling, refusing to accept an Australian student card (except the Galleria Corsini and the Museo d’Arte Orientale), refusing to give me a student discount because I’m a 26-year-old student and not an 18-25-year-old student, begrudgingly and haughtily handing me a map of the museum only when I ask for it, and generally putting on an attitude which sours the start of my visit.

Roman museums also seem to have a little difficulty with the concept of ‘permanent collection’ and ‘temporary exhibition’ and an accompanying different price structure. In two of the museums (Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, and Musei Capitoline) I’ve visited they had some special show on, and so I had to pay extra, because the museums are incapable of making different tickets and having someone check your tickets at the entry to the special show. At one museum the entry price was fully double than the entry price when there is no special show (Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna; really unfriendly staff too)! And the show was totally not worth it. And museums in general are overpriced. And there appears to be very few free museums.

AND AS FOR THE ORTO BLOODY BOTANICO!! Guess how much I had to pay to go and see some GARDENS? FOUR EURO!! OK, if the Italian state is too tight-fisted or too poor to properly finance GRASS and PLANTS, then I’m happy to support the Gardens in employing enough staff to maintain the gardens and to cultivate rare plants with one euro, TWO at most. But FOUR?! Clearly all the children I saw in there belong to rich families. And then the worst thing is that the gardens were not even immaculately maintained! (Probably because they don’t have enough money because they charge too much… FOUR euro for GRASS… you can imagine my mutterings as I was walking through the gardens…) There were WEEDS! All over the place. I hardly expect to be admiring the Common Garden Weed, even if it is in full bloom and in profusion, when I’ve paid four euro. The Japanese pond (pathetic pagoda - not even a pagoda actually, just an outdoor hut) was full of algae and needed a good scrubbing. Ach. Thumbs down to the Italian State! Oh yeah, and the gardens are not huge. Oh no, don’t got expecting Kew Gardens, Melbourne’s Botanical Gardens, or Cape Town’s… no. But do expect to pay four euro.

And my next rant… PUBLIC TRANSPORT. Oh, how I hate public transport. It’s SLOW, it always take FIFTEEN minutes to arrive (Oh buses 719 and 228, where are you? LATE! that’s where you are), it’s STINKORAMA (thank heavens for my eucalyptus inhaler from Thailand), it’s DIRTY, and it’s full of ADOLESCENTS. And no one gives their seat to small children or elderly people! I haven’t seen any pregnant women on public transport, which is probably because no one will give them a seat either. Argh. My Calabrian friend tells me that public transport is ok when you don’t live way way out in the ‘burbs like me. I live in Trullo, which I like to shorten to ‘the trou’, which is French for HOLE. Trullo has nothing to recommend it, not decent public transport, no decent cafes, no parks, nothing (except, in my case, free accommodation, for which I am very grateful). I don’t mind having no decent cafes etc., I just hate the public transport. There was a big brawl in a bar on my street the other week, which adds a certain spice to life.

Sorry, I should add, in case some oversensitive Italian reads this, that this is tongue-in-cheek, and that I know AT LEAST two lovely Romans, though one is really Australian but his parents are from Rome, or Lazio at least, but anyway, I don't really think that all Romans are rude. Down with national stereotypes!

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