Urban Adventure

Before going to bed, I checked the GPS for distance to the Apple store, and found out it was about 20km away – that means my trip there and back would end up being more than my last day approach to Rome.  My thoughts however, were that I would be here for a full week, and a week without the internet (in the wee hours of the morning when I’m up and no one else is) may be a bit torturous for me.  I know that I will be seeing a lot of tennis, including all rounds up to the finals on Sunday, so if I spent a day doing this, I had nothing to lose.

 

I was thinking of leaving early to miss some of the rush hour traffic – but I was afraid I would get there too early and have to wait for them to open…HA!   That’s funny now that I think about it.  It took me about 2.5 hours to get there, yes that’s an average of about 8km or 6 miles per hour.  Quite a bit of it though was due to having to stop so often to check the GPS during the first half of the trip, not to mention the fact that I was getting my “initiation” into Roman driving; I was learning “the code” (you’ll read about that tomorrow).  The number of turns and confusion was incredible.  I also had to fight the GPS wanting to toss me onto the Autostrada or one of the other major highways that also run from the suburbs to this market district.  Each time that happened, I would have to pull up the map, choose another road, get to that road, and then let the GPS recalculate from that point.  It seems confusing, but it was pretty easy to do.  The GPS would always show me exactly where I was in relation to all the other streets and my destination; without it, I would have had little to no chance of finding this place by bike.  Before I got too far, I stopped and bought a little knapsack at a local shop – it was perfect and only 6 euro.  Even though I had underestimated how long I’d be on the bike, I did wear riding pants underneath my jeans (yes, I was riding in jeans for the first time), otherwise I’d have been sore for days.  Also, by the time I started back, it was nice to be able to put my pants and the stuff I bought in the knapsack.

 

When planning the trip while in Pennsylvania, I thought that lots of people ride bikes in Rome, and that I would be just one more.  Well, from what I can see, lots of people ride bikes in Italy, but this is not so common in Rome.  It is as if you are in a full on, peak rush hour, all day.  However, it’s not rush hour because there is so much traffic that is stop and go – this is only occasionally the case – it is rush hour because people are ALWAYS RUSHING.  It is as if every car and especially every motorbike goes as fast as it possibly can at all times, only slowing down because of another car, bike or pedestrian in front of it.  It’s almost as if there is a race going on in every direction at all times.  I have ridden a bike in down town London (where they still drive on the wrong side of the street), and in many busy Italian cities, but Rome is in a different class all its own.  Now I fully understand why Marzia would not drive in Rome, and insisted on finding a hertz drop location outside of the city (which we did, by the way).  The motorbikes however, deserve a special mention.  As far as I can tell, there are absolutely no rules governing their operation outside of red and green lights (most of the time).  They can go between lanes, pass on the left, or on the right, and in general weave in and out of traffic to their hearts content.  They can ride several abreast, cross streets with pedestrians, park on sidewalks, and in general act as if the road is for them, and the cars are only there to provide sport to the drivers. 

 

It’s also not just that everyone goes fast, and everyone is competing for position all the time, in every lane – but the parking of Italians makes everything that much more challenging.  Italians (outside of Marzia who missed the “parking gene” somehow) park wherever they please, whenever they please, with little concern for its impact on others.  Not only is double parking absolutely rampant (which makes the left lanes continually expand and constrict), but they will go as far as double parking in the wrong direction on the wrong side of the street if that’s what it takes to get as close to their desired location as possible.  Besides the difficulties it causes other drivers, those of us on two wheels (I’m now including the motorbikes as well), are “squeezed” even more than the customary squeezing when this occurs.  Normally I have about 6 inches of space between me and passing traffic, but when trying to negotiate by the double parked cars, my space can be cut to as little as 2 inches – that’s not a lot of leeway when traffic is moving and you have to constantly be attentive to the heinous “side mirrors” that are always out to “clip you” (as I got to see first hand by the taxi driver the night before). I especially like the creative parking in the picture below - here they are parking on the medium between lanes and trees.

 

The second half of the ride to “Rome Est” was much easier as it somehow was a bit of a “country” road for a few km.  The next thing I know, I am on a newly paved road and huge signs everywhere for “Rome Est” and listing the hundreds of shops, restaurants and the like there.  While I was thinking I was going to an old section of town that was not heavily populated by shops, it was actually a very new MALL of all things, on the outskirts of town.  For the “professional” shoppers out there, this thing was “mall heaven”!  I’ve never seen a more beautiful, well appointed (if a mall can be described as such) mall in my life.  But most impressively were the number of designer labels represented there.  Besides the fact that Italy is possibly the center of clothing style and design in the world, and every brand was represented, there were tons of others as well – making this the “sheik of the sheik” for shopping.  I was only sorry my girls weren’t able to see it… actually, on second thought, I’m glad they didn’t J.  The apple store was very cool as usual, and the guy who spoke English there was sure I could hook up a small network off of her XP machine.  I knew this would not be as easy as he made it out to be.

 

As I headed back to the apartment, I decided that I might as well do some sight seeing on the way back if I “stumbled” onto anything worth stopping for.  There was naturally always something like that.  My GPS (which gives me verbal instructions in Italian as to when and where to turn, was now officially named “Marzia” after my first female guide in Italy) continued to try and throw me onto the highway.  “Marzia” and I had words, and obviously I won.  After over-riding her several times on the way home, she decided she was having enough of the domineering American, and she shut down completely (dead battery).  While I brought the charger for just such an emergency, I also had a paper map of Rome.  I decided that using the paper map would be more challenging and interesting, so that was plan B.  It also allowed me to interact with a few more local, and practice some of my Italian.

 

In the midst of all the crazy drivers and the directions that had to be constantly checked , over-rided, and reconfirmed, I noticed that all the confusion really didn’t matter that much, because as long as I’m on the bike I was happy.  This is likely why I get lost so often – I’m just so happy to keep pedaling and processing all the “inputs” around me, that I forget the time, or where I’m going and all I want to do is “GO”>>>.  For the day I ended up doing over 45km, took a number of new photos, and saw a good deal of Rome.  I finished the evening by watching a night match at the stadium.  Tomorrow I’ll tell you about the taxi strike.