Roman Hobble-day

We went here this morning. If you look to the right side of the photo, far off in the distance, you can see the Coliseum. Lots of tourists, but really, it's not like we're natives at this point. But wow, is this city old. It's amazing to see stuff that's been around, well, WAY longer than anything, mixed up with cars, digital cameras and Japanese tours.

The big snag was that there was a metro strike. Will had heard of this yesterday, but we thought it would just be the big trains (similar to the MetroNorth or Boston's Commuter Rail), but it included the subways:



This is where things got tricky. Now follow my train of thought here. Will sent me this the other day:

I find every ambitious town sends you a message. New York tells you "you should make more money." LA tells you "you should be better looking." Rome tells you "you should dress better." London tells you "you should be hipper." The Bay Area tells you "you should live better." And Cambridge tells you "you should read some of those books you've been meaning to." (Paul Graham)

Did you catch that part about Rome? I figured I should get a little more dressed than usual-- I'd been wearing my dirty orange Pumas and blue sweatshirt for the past two days. Now that I'm here... you know, "when in Rome..."

So I wore the completely wrong shoes. Will even asked me as I put on these ridiculous beasts, "um, we're going to be walking a bit, are you sure you want to wear those?"

And I lied the way every woman lies on the topic of shoes: "No, actually they're really comfortable."

If you define "comfortable" as "blisters on the bottoms of your feet" then it wasn't so much a lie. Any shoe that adds about four inches in height can never be comfortable. They weren't stilettos, but they were not "comfortable". So now I sit, hobbled.

One thing mildly cheered me up in my state of podiatric pain:



I wonder if they know what this means in the states. I didn't know this, but Captain Trivia (aka Will) said that slogan started out as an anti-litter campaign in the biggest state in the union.


Welcome to Italy. I think I'm gonna like it here.