There are a couple of cool things we discovered here in
Rome. One was the cat ruins where Augustus Cesar was killed. It only takes up
one little city block and is fenced off. You can stand at the edge and look
down into the excavated ruins and look very carefully for the cats. They’re
everywhere once you find one.
Another is the concept of car sharing. This isn’t what it
sounds like. It’s a company called Enjoy. Apparently there are similar
companies in the US, but I’d never heard of it. So one evening when the four of
us were carless, Gianluca pulled out his phone and tapped his car-share app. It
tells him what cars are nearby. He picked the car he wanted and we had 15
minutes to get to it. Once there he tapped a button and voila the Fiat
unlocked. A voice came on that requested he look the car over and approve it.
Then we climbed in and Gianluca picked the keys up from a hiding place and
started the car. Unfortunately we were blocked in, but this didn’t stop
Gianluca. He gently rolled forward and back and pushed the cars out of his way
and we were off. The charge for the car is by the minute, so he was eager to
get home. Once there we got out the voice reminded him to check for belongings.
He did and shut the door. 15 seconds later it locked. And that was all. Isn’t
that brilliant?
Did you know that for about two thousand years water has
flowed into the city through aqueducts set at the perfect angle of 25 degrees?
All of this water flows continuously into the city of Rome and explains why
there’re fountains everywhere. But look more closely and you’ll see what looks
like garden faucets left turned on with water flowing into a drain. To a
Californian this looks almost sacrilegious. All of these have a down turned
spout to fill your water bottles with. The water is delicious and cold. But
here’s the extra info… on the spout is a little hole. If you plug the big
opening with one hand it forces the water out of the smaller opening and
becomes a drinking fountain! Naturally we first made fools of ourselves by
cupping our hands and trying to drink the water until a local showed us how it
done.
Not so cool things: there is an unspoken law in Italy
regarding the proper consumption of cappuccino. We didn’t realize our social
blunder until Egle gasped at a photo we’d taken of two cappuccinos and a beer.
She asked in surprise, “Did Joe have a beer for breakfast?” Not that it is
impossible knowing Joe, but I answered, “No, that was in the afternoon.” Her
expression was even more comical as she explained that one never, ever orders a
cappuccino in the afternoon. Gianluca joined the discussion and told about one
time at a business conference he was asked by a colleague to order him a
cappuccino when the server came by. Gianluca said no. He refused to do it
because it’s not acceptable to drink milk with your coffee in the afternoon.
The three of us thought this was hilarious, and later Izzy asked why anyone
could care a less whether or not you put milk in your coffee? We enjoyed
ordering cappuccinos in the afternoon much more after that.
Toilets seats or the lack thereof: seriously… Italy is
having a shortage of toilet seats. I think we found maybe two on our entire
trip that had a seat. The rest were just the bowl. Even nice places had no
actual seat. You could see where it was originally attached at some point in
time. So we thought maybe they should set up a Go-Fund-Me account to purchase
seats for the country.
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