Posted on 07/19/2019 8:53:30 AM PDT by C19fan
On a blistering July morning in Rome, a man in a white hazmat suit is collecting samples from a pile of festering and oddly shimmering liquid that has seeped from a dumpster into the cobblestone lanes near the Roman Colosseum.
Around the corner, traffic is backed up on a major street as a massively overfed seagull and a diseased-looking raven tussle over the carcass of a bloated rat. Garbage bags ripped open by rodents spill the contents—rotting food and curdled milk—onto picturesque squares. Citizens have taken matters into their own hands, liberally scattering rat poisoning in the overflowing dumpsters, but that means the smell of decomposing dead rodents and rotting waste permeates the air. And let’s not even talk about the size of the cockroaches that scatter when the city’s church bells toll.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
Mafia controlling the carting industry?
Why, I am just surprised! /s
“Luther Vandross?”
Nice!
Trying to make their muzzie immigrants feel like at home?
Fr. James martin in town? Get rid of the gay priests and all will be better.
My MIL and her Italian second generation American boyfriend visited Italy a few years ago. He was not impressed.
Italy, he said, was dirty and corrupt. They were forced to purchase toilet paper from a men guarding the entrances to restaurant’s restrooms. The sauces were so thin they “weren’t Italian”, and everywhere it was dirty.
In short, he was disappointed.
Plus the gypsies in Rome will rob you blind in broad daylight. They use children to literally assault tourists.
I once ran into what must have been a mother/daughter pair along a major thoroughfare with streets crowded with Romans and tourists. The daughter, 14 years old or so, grabbed my right arm with an iron grip with both hands and wouldn’t let get while the Mother went through my pockets.
I couldn’t shake the grip of the girl and began turning turning in a circle to literally throw her into the street and had the daughter flying off the ground trying to shake her grip.
The mother got a few things out of my pockets but was unable to fish out the most valuable things. Plus my wallet and passport were safe in a body pouch under my shirt, belt and and pants. Others walking the crowded street ignored all this except for someone driving by who stopped his car, got out in the traffic (no room to park) and helped me release the iron grip of the daughter. At which point the girl and woman fled.
I was hesitant to really knock out the woman and girl — which I would have to do with my left hand. But I assumed I would have been the one arrested. I went to the police afterward and they shrugged their shoulders.
Smaller gypsy children also descend like a pack of wolves on groups of tourists and pick their pockets and then flee en masse. Because they are children, the Roman police and politicians act helpless to do anything about it.
Also beware young Roman men coming up to you at the airport and offering you a ride. They generally are going to charge you 10 or 20 times the going rate when you reach your destination.
Is this something new?
Too many tourists?
Try too many Africans.
Venice also. My folks visited some years back. A pickpocket got my Dad's wallet and my Mom's purse was slashed, though fortunately they didn't get anything from her.
Rome has always been, shall we say, untidy, but the sights are well worth a visit. In terms of hanging out, though, I much prefer Tuscany or Venice and the cities south of the Lake Country, which is spectacular.
When I travel, I never have anything in my pockets.
I have a neck wallet that is under my shirt, and an small daybag if I need to carry anything, that I always hold onto.
Every major Western European city is like that, Barcelona was real bad.
That is a mistaken idea many Americans have, misunderstanding the basics of Italian cooking. They never promoted thick tomato-pasty sauces. Their pasta and/or pizza sauce is basically olive oil with garlic and a few chopped tomatoes and/or other vegetables thrown in, sautéed rapidly and very fresh. It's delicious and less caloric, by the way, than the thick, cheese-laden American pasta and pizza sauces.
My Daughter went a few years ago and said rats and cats were a problem. My daughter has 5 cats so take that in consideration.
hot summertime is the traditional time for Garbage Services Strikes
Eddie was comparing what he was served in Italy with the food his Italian mother prepared. Apparently she made her sauces thicker. He was really disappointed, and he ranted about that trip for weeks.
I’ve heard from other Italian-Americans how grateful they feel that their foreparents migrated here!
“I went in 1985 and was mugged by one of the pickpocket gangs. I will never return.”
I, and various others in my tour group (college courses on Italian history, followed by trip), were all ripped off by wandering gypsy thieves, and that was 30 years ago. Rome is the perfect city for a neutron bomb, one that gets rid of its inhabitants while leaving all the buildings and monuments intact.
“Their pasta and/or pizza sauce is basically olive oil with garlic and a few chopped tomatoes and/or other vegetables thrown in, sautéed rapidly and very fresh. It’s delicious and less caloric, by the way, than the thick, cheese-laden American pasta and pizza sauces.”
I second this motion. Had the best simple fresh pizza margherita I’ve ever eaten in a resort town on the Adriatic in Italy years ago.
Leni
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