More Rome, Italy

Story time, boys and girls, gather round. Last night Kelly and I decided to eat at the very touristy Piazza Navona. There's a huge fountain with statues in this big square, surrounded by fake bag salesman, artists, and restaurants. We sat down at a restaurant where the menu looked good, but then I saw our neighbor's food and pointed it out to Kelly. The tomatoes were wilted, cheese was too goopy...it was bad enough to make us want to leave. So we did. It was a little embarrasing to tell the guy who had just sold us streetside that we were leaving. We ended up at a neighboring restaurant where we confirmed the food looked good. In Sorrento, there had always been a wine around €8, but here the cheapest bottle was €20. So we ordered a €20 bottle of Merlot. The waiter, dressed in a tuxedo, returned with a Cabernet, telling us they're all out of Merlot (once we asked...I'm not sure whether he was going to mention it). After a brief huddle, Kelly and I decided that's fine. The waiter proceeded to open and pour the wine in our glasses, without offering us the traditional taste pour - an all but meaningless tradition, I admit, since you're not approving the wine, just validating it hasn't gone bad. Oh, the irony. My first sip tasted fine. My first sip of any wine usually tastes good or bad depending on my mood and what I've last eaten, rather than the actual quality of the wine. A few sips later it dawned on both Kelly and me that the wine was horrible. I mean if it were €2, I wouldn't have blinked, but for €20 (wine with dinner has been generally cheaper here than in the States) it was nasty. Another few minutes passed, and I asked Kelly, "Did we order sparkling wine?" We hadn't, but that's what we were drinking. Hundreds of tiny bubbles had formed all around the rims of both our glasses. This confirmed it: the wine was nasty. In a retroactively sagacious move, I had convinced Kelly we would order just the salad and wine first, so we could have a nice, slow dinner (food in Italy tends to come rushing out all at once). Our salad was mediocre, the wine was obviously rancid, and our waiter was sort of giving me the creeps. What kind of waiter deprives me of a taste pour? Not only that, his snootiness had begun to emanate, though I had no specific action on his part to justify it. Not yet.

Not a very good story so far, is it? That last paragraph is but the platform, or background for where the real story begins, which is here. But see, if I had told you that up there, you might have just skipped to down here, and I needed the up there to set the mood first. Okay, mood set. All the above negatives and Kelly and I decided we would just leave. We were only in €8 Euro for the salad - we would show the wine was bad, pay for the salad, and try our luck at a restaurant recommended in our Frommer's Guide (by now we weren't taking any chances). The waiter returned, and I point to the bubbles. He picked up the glass, mystified for a few moments. I tried to explain we just wanted the bill, but mid-attempt he set down the glasses and darted off. He returned a minute later with a new glass, gesturing that he thought the first glasses had caused the bubbles. He poured another glass while Kelly and I tried to explain the wine tasted bad, it wasn't just the bubbles. He was pretty pushy by this point, not listening to us or noticing our screaming-loud closed body language. He walked off while Kelly and I waited for the bubbles to form (it took a while the first time). At this point, Kelly really wanted to insist the wine was bad and make our waiter understand. I was past that. I knew he understood. It had clicked in for me: this is the place where tourists get screwed. He was hawking wine to us just like Mr. Sunglasses and Mr. Gucci Bag 20 feet away, with absolutely no concern for any objection we might have. I just had to wait for the bubbles to form in the new glass. The original bubbled glasses had been my opening move, ushering in the new glass had been his rebuttal, and the existence of bubbles on that new glass would be my closing argument in an attempt to escape what I was fearing was a possible €20 sentence. He came back and I showed him the new bubbles starting to form at the bottom of the glass (duh! If any of you can invent a glass that carbonates water, please patent it). He looked twice as mystified as before. Nice play. I was trying to ask for "just the bill please" when he whisked off again. He returned with another bottle of the same wine. Now we made our point louder: we just want the bill and would like to leave. He finally got it, and looked like a sad puppy we had just kicked in the gut. Speaking of guts, I had a knot in mine by this point. He removed the bottle and all three wine glasses and sulked away. Now I felt really guilty. This poor guy just wanted us to be happy after all. He had brought another bottle to please us and we shunned him. Maybe my read on his snootiness had been misguided. I was preparing to pay and walk away shamefully. Until, that is, he brought the bill for €17, explaining, "I only charge you for 2 glasses of wine." Now it doesn't need mentioning, but I will still mention that we had drunk a quarter glass of wine between the both of us. What a move! A transition from pathetic waiter into "you can make it up to me" waiter. He was plea-bargaining: €10 to avoid confrontation and potential insults in a foreign country. I pondered my counter-move. "Okay," I agreed defeatedly. Kelly was worked up by now, and as he walked away she said, "I'm going to go talk to the manager." I was able to convince her that the manager wasn't going to be on our side. In my view, any establishment that allowed a guy like this to be as rude as he had been would not be happy to return our money. Plus I had now solidified my view of this being the place where the tourists get screwed. In this area, there is no word of mouth. There is no prize for having good food or service. It's a huge tourist area where people show up and then realize they're hungry. These restaurants pour all their money into paying a guy full time to stand outside and hard-sell you that their restaurant is the best. This makes good business sense when you consider tourists provide no repeat business. Kelly went to the bathroom, and while she was gone I concocted my checkmate. After briefing Kelly, I left €10 on the table and we calmly walked away. Okay, so Kelly was more like one of those Olympic race-walkers who left me in the dust. Despite her dead giveaway, we got away. It was beautiful...instead of trying to argue up the chain of command at the restaurant, I just chose my way: the highway. We went directly to a Frommer's recommended restaurant and had an absolutely award-winning, delicious, relaxed, well-served meal. The restaurant was so quaint and non-corporate that the waiter didn't even bother with a test pour of our wine. Isn't that adorable and refreshing?

Today we saw the Colosseum. The structure is huge and very majestic from the outside. Unfortunately, the inside didn't add that much more for me, and cost €10 per person to enter. Really, we could have seen everything from outside through the huge archway openings. I'm finding I don't like tourist attractions where everybody lines up and pays to get in (have I already written about this?). It just cheapens the whole thing for me. I am enjoying much more the various huge buildings and sculptures that are staggered throughout Rome. They're free and there is no line. I like the feeling of stumbling across a gorgeous fountain with sculptures of warriors and mermaids. It's like going to see a great movie you've never heard about. The Colosseum was for me like [soliciting movie suggestions], it was good, but paled compared to my lofty expectations.

By the way, al Qaeda has threatened Italy with terrorism if they do not meet their demands in Iraq. Kelly and I were able to witness first-hand at the Colosseum today the Italians' ingenious response to the threat: the volunteer security checkpoint. This is brilliant because it saves much wasted time and hassle. They have set up a metal detector at the entrance, but there is nobody manning it, and you can walk around it if you wish. Therein lies the brilliance. Terrorists can walk through the metal detector, and everyone else can simply go around since they are no threat. Bravo, Italia!

Kelly and I will be staying in Rome for about a week or so total. Despite the rants above, we both really like it here.