The End Of A Beautiful Friendship

I've finally have had it with the Oldsmobile. After eight return trips to the mechanic and $700 the A/C is still broken. Actually it was done in by Al Gore and his new toxic Freon. I hate to give up on it , but I can't drive in a Dutch Oven and I think I created a one car Freon shortage in western N.C. I can't face the mechanic again and I'm sure it's becoming a lose/loose situation all around. Yesterday I was driving home and some senior made a left in front of me from the center lane and for a moment I thought it might be better to hit him and end this saga. The 1993 brakes almost guaranteed a hit but at the last second I swerved around him. American drivers are brain-dead; an Italian driver would have blown his horn, gunned it and passed in front of me. However, in true befuddled, senile, distracted, medicated North Carolina driving style he crossed my lane and stopped dead.

Marianne wants the car for just tooling around Grove City. My response to that offer is similar to Rep. Joe Wilson's comment during Obama's health care speech: "YOU LIE". I know she would take it to Fargo N.D. and break down and have to call Uncle Dick.

So, instead of putting it in the classifieds and having a dozen Mexicans at my door I have decided to I'm going to donate it to a local missionary. It's sort of like pulling the plug on Grandma because she has a toothache, but perhaps he knows someone who can fix the A/C. It's all Al Gore's fault.

GPS Recommended

Map of Rome for tourists.


Map of Rome based in reality.

Next time in Rome I'm going to have a Tom-Tom stuck to my forehead with a suction cup. We must have walked an extra 15 miles just being lost. I had moments when I felt like a rat in some sadistic scientist's experiment. On the bright side the maze was lined with gelato stands, pizzerias and pretty girls on scooters, and every 50 meters there was a basilica to visit and pray for God's direction in my life.

Final Pix

Buffet Euro Style

I thought I had the Euro Buffet down pat. Desserts, coffee and drinks are extra and not included in the price of the buffet. I was wrong. This buffet was 9 Euros each, so with the price of drinks and desserts I thought it would be about 45 Euro (app $65). But when the conto (check) came it was 85 Euros. It seems that it's 9 euro every time I grabbed a new plate. Now I'm not a big buffet stuffer, instead I like to go back up and try little things in small amounts (especially when I don't realize what anything is). So I used 4 plates, I could have fit it all on one plate and I think the last plate had a piece of cantaloupe and a cookie. So we totaled eight plates: I guess I don't know everything about Euro buffets after all, Ka-Ching.

On a lighter note I think I have a dental abscess. There isn't any pain just a feeling of pressure in my ear and a puffy gum. Now I know that when I get home it will take a week to get into my dentist (Mon-Thurs 9am till 4pm), so I decided to go to the pharmacy and see if I can get some kefzol or erythromycin. We go the Farmicia and with Ben translating and me pointing at my dentura abcesso the pharmacist hands me a box of Augmentin. After I point to the label and say no allergic I hand her 10 Euros (about the price of a plate at the buffet) and I'm done. No prescription, no twenty page side effect warning, HIPPA release or insurance paperwork. This is reason enough for me to move to Italy.

Last Days in Roma

If Italian drivers were in the USA they would be shot; if USA drivers were in Italy they would be dead. Rome is like one big traffic circle. The cars, buses, scooters and motorcycles just flow together like red blood cells in a vein. There really isn't road rage, but more of an outpouring of emotions via the hand waving, horn blowing and yelling. There is no cussing or bird flipping--- it's more like a heated family argument on wheels. Scooters make up about 60% of the traffic and without them Rome would be gridlocked. Any space as wide as their handlebars they will squeeze through. When I'm on the bus it looks like they are actually going under the bus. Americans look like amateurs next to to these drivers.

There are no trucks in Rome. The biggest thing you see is a delivery van. I wonder how they get stuff into the city. Either they have tunnels or the trucks only make deliveries at night. There was an accident about a block before our bus stop. It caused our electro-bus to go a block in the lane without the overhead wires. Then we got back in the lane and everybody had to get off because the battery died before the antennas could reconnect with the overhead cables. The driver shoo's everybody off the bus and the mob has to find its way to the local bus that is stopping in some strange place. This really caused a lot of hand waving chatter. I think that's why these people are so happy: they get it all out.

The Romans also are a beautiful people. It's like you take the handsomest person in your high school and make them 90% of the population. Then you take the second best looking and that's the other 10%. You can tell the Americans, they are fat, ugly and wearing shorts and hats. Italians don't wear jeans, t-shirts, baseball hats, shorts or fanny packs. There are no beards, eyeglasses (except they all wear sunglasses) or dumb looks. They just look put together. Hopefully the plane will allow me seven hours to decompress and reacclimate to American Chic.

Ciao

ART FOR ARTS SAKE

Students on a field trip to the Museo of Modern Art; bummer dude, our kids get to go to DOLLY WOOD. Nine A.M. at Ben's corner.



























Quick call112.

A Roman hybrid. It's 80% scooter and 20% car; but hell it's still a BMW.

Beggar who has the franchise on Ben's Street.

Roma: The Saga Continues

Home Interiors Party circa 79 A.D.














Roman Sewer aka M & D' s basement















It would probably get stuck in the wheel well of a Peterbuilt.
















I'm with stupid.















The Spanish Steps; the guide book says you must see it. I think a thousand other people had the same book.



















Pappa Pia; I know I thought he was Ernest Hemingway also.



















You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a church like this one. So many relics, so little time.















Gun designed by DaVinci; I guess he was a bad shot.



















Rome is one big Stair-Master















Roman custody battle.



















Lake in Villa Borghese.















Terrapin, but no Seraphim


















I think there are more Golden Arches, but I could be wrong.















Northern Gate 0f Roma.



















Finally a Cappucino Carol's size.















March of the Babba's.















Museo of Modern Art Roma
















































I'll just make a space on the corner.















American Iron
















Prayer Altar outside Ben's house. People stop and say a prayer in the mornings before they venture downtown.















This train isn't leaving until I'm on it.

Reel Housewives of Rome



















Caesar Flatus Maximus



















I'm sure the condo association would love this statue in my front yard.



















Pope's starter home; only 2,000 steps to the top.















Hermaphrodite (look carefully)





























Single scull on the Tiber


































The climate here is wonderful. It's warm but not humid, you don't notice yourself perspiring. I have taken up carrying a water bottle and filling it whenever I find "potable water". A bottle of water can cost anywhere from one to five Euros (a Euro is equal to about $1.25, thanks Obama). The Italians also take a different approach to security. They take a collectivist defensive stance against crime with gated doors and windows, steel shutters, electronic cameras, alarms on everything, chains and front doors that resemble bank vaults with their massive 16 locking bolts. I'm not sure what's better, maybe if all my stuff is gone when I get home I'll rethink things. The people here are really sweet. We met a woman on the train returning from Pompeii, she told us her daughter is going to medical school in Philadelphia. Actually she explained it to Ben, I just nodded my head and put on my Forrest Gump face.

My Last Day Of Pompeii.

" Hey guys, I'm here for my audition"



















Pompeii.Stock Exchange; it's in better shape than ours.

Today we went to Pompeii. We had to take a train down to Naples. Now when I was a child my parents would say "bafa Nabala". We weren't allowed to say "son of a gun", "go to hell" or "dang" and especially not "bafa Nabala." My Mom explained to me it was like "go to hell" but worse; now I know what she meant. Going from Rome to Naples is like a trip from the second world to the third world. It's like a Monet', it looks good far away , but when you get up close it's just a big old mess. Ben took this picture of us in front of Mt. Vesuvius. He said "Vesuvius was like our marriage, dormant put capable of erupting at any time."



This looks like Starbuck's first coffee grinder.








Pompeii dogs are on the dole.






The Pompeii audio tour predicts another eruption on 5/14/2011.



The train to Pompeii (aka Darjeeling Limited).

Train back to Rome, only 20 minutes late.
Altar in the forum at Pompeii.
McDonalds in Naples

First Class
Entering Pompeii