FLorence by Shaylyn

As I’m writing this, we’re boarding the bus to
leave Rome for Florence, so nothing’s really happened yet. Mrs. Buchanen wants
me to write something, though, so I figured I’d give it a shot. Sadly, I don’t
know enough about Florence to know for sure what to expect when we arrive. When
you go to Rome, you have a pretty good idea of what you’re going to see; the Vatican, the Trevi Fountain, etc. Although
Florence is one of those major cities that everyone’s heard of before, I don’t
actually know what’s so special about it. I’m ignorant like that. We should be
arriving in a few hours, though, so I guess I’ll find out soon enough, and when
I do, I can pretend that I knew all along. No one has to know. Everyone already
thinks I’m one of those quiet geniuses when really I just never have anything
interesting to say, so it should be easy enough to fake.
The thing about Rome is that it’s
really repetitive. I wasn’t expecting that. Seriously, it’s absolutely massive,
but about 75% of the city is copying itself. Every few feet there’s a souvenir
shop, but every single one is exactly
the same as the one before it. They all sell the exact same goods, are run by
people that look identical, and bear signs identifying them as “SOUEVENIR
SHOP.” Similarly, right beside these
SOUVENIR SHOPS there tends to be a food stand. Every single food stand in this
place is exactly the same, with the exact same displays of ICE COLD DRINK and
HAMBURGER and GELATO and PANINI. Every
block or so there’s a newspaper stand, and most of the stores are chain stores
that can be found on every street.
Also, there’s this little tribe
of street vendors that follow us everywhere. There are three kinds of basic
vendors; the mushy-ball guys, the laser pointer guys, and the flower guys. They
all look exactly the same, but they can’t
be the same, because sometimes we see three or four within ten feet of each other
on the same street. What they do is
carry their random novelty wares around with them and try to hawk them to the
crowds, and it’s impossible to go anywhere in Rome without seeing them. Like
last night at dinner; one of the guys selling flowers tried to enter the
restaurant where we were eating, grinning like a dope and holding out his roses
to us to try and entice us to buy. The manager just pushed hi m outside, saying
“Ciao, ciao, ciao” while the diners cracked up.
Even the panhandlers all seem kind
of similar. It’s eerie. It’s like there’s some kind of homeless people’s
association where everyone is assigned what kind of homeless person they’re
going to be and are given a location to work within. That’s probably
politically incorrect, but I don’t care because it’s true. I’ve seen three
versions of the “religious old woman with the headscarf who makes the sign of
the cross as you if you give her money” as well as at least two “accordionist
and adorable son with his own toy accordion” and about four of the “person who
sits on a skateboard and curls the toes of their bare feet while pulling
themselves along with their hands in order to imply that they can’t walk.” (The
only people in Italy who wear sneakers are tourists and those skateboard
people, but the skateboard people only wear them on their hands.) I’d likely be
more sympathetic if I hadn’t had pitilessness ingrained in me since childhood
from years of being taught that most supposed homeless people are either drunks
or con artists.
Speaking of drunks, there’s been
a surprising lack of them here, even though wine is served everywhere and I
haven’t seen a single food stand yet without a display of beer in the windows.
(Duff Beer exists, by the way. I almost wanted to buy a can just to take home as
a souvenir but the teachers would’ve killed me and sent me home piece by piece
as a warning to others.) Maybe since alcohol isn’t treated as a big deal, no
one feels the need to drink to the extreme. Apparently Rome refused to give
McDonalds a license at first unless it agreed to class up its interior design
scheme and serve drinks, so you can even get alcohol in fast food places; but
I’m yet to see anyone get truly drunk here. A lot of people make out right in
the restaurants and on the streets, though, now that I think about it. At first
I thought it was just that Rome is naturally a very romantic city, but maybe
they’re all kind of wasted and are just getting too friendly. That would
explain a lot.
I forgot what my point was. I
guess that although we were only in Rome for a few days and are leaving today,
we probably didn’t miss that much, so it’s not that big a deal that we barely
began to scratch the surface of this ancient city. Every few feet there’s
another masterpiece of ancient art, but that starts to get a bit tiring after a
while. It all kind of looks the same in the end. I don’t know about anyone
else, but even though we only had a few days to look around, I think I probably
got the whole tourist experience, so I’m good. And I’m not just saying that to
make myself feel better about having to leave so soon. I’ll miss those laser pointer guys, though. I
almost wish I’d taken a picture with one.
I should probably stop now. I’ve
been writing for about five minutes and have probably written the single
longest student blog entry yet. We haven’t even gone anywhere yet today, so
what am i even writing about? I’m going to turn this off now and pass it to
someone else. It’s hard to concentrate on good writing when I’m this tired.