We went to Rome last weekend with Carrie's family and we were able to use that saying a lot. I don't think the Romans find it as funny as I did, they probably hear it a lot.
But, there is something that everyone should know in case you ever do find yourself "in Rome." On Sunday morning we caught Bus #916 to the Colosseum. Upon boarding the bus, we noticed that people were loading on the front of the bus and on the back. Being a frequent bus rider in my home country, I know that this isn't a great practice for the bus company to allow this because people don't have to walk by the driver to pay. But, being the good public transportation patron that I am, I loaded at the front of the bus and found that the driver was not taking money. "No big deal" I thought, there must be someone coming around to collect my money. But as I searched, there was no one. The bus was completely packed, so I reasoned that the bus company must have decided that it wasn't worth it to try to get everyone to pay and that the person taking the money must have just been sitting in the back, squished by all the people crowding the bus. So, we got off the bus near the Colosseum and saw much of Rome's wonderful sights.
Later, after a very long day of sightseeing, Carrie and I needed to catch the bus back to our hotel, pick up our bags and go to the airport to head home. We had about 4 hours to catch the bus, get our bags, catch a taxi to the train station, take a train to the airport, check in, and fly out. I felt like we were cutting it a little close, so I was getting a little impatient when we waited for over half an hour for the bus to show up. But, no problem, we were on our way with 3.5 hours to go. I again load at the front and look for a place to pay. There seemed to be a place to put coins near the driver and when I asked him where to pay, he just points at the door. I glanced at the door, obviously confused, and he points at the door again. Then a lady in the front seat says to me in broken English "you must get off the bus, you don't have ticket, get off the bus" I said, "I want to pay, I don't have a ticket." Again she said "get off the bus" I said "no, my family is back there in the back of the bus" and I scurried to the back of the bus very quickly. All of Carrie's family was back there and I told them what had happened. By this time the bus was rolling along and i could see that seated next to us were a group of American kids that were explaining to someone that they didn't have a ticket either. Then a guy next to us dressed in a blue uniform says "Where is your ticket?" We said we didn't have any. He said "You must have a ticket to ride this bus" Then two other uniformed people surround us and block the exit door. He said "See, it is written here, you can't ride the bus without a ticket" pointing to a sign in Italian. We said we didn't know and that we would get off at the next stop. He said "you can't get off, you must pay a fine" His friend was blocking the exit so we couldn't get off. He said "the fine is 100 euros per person" Now there were 8 of us on the bus. That was over $1000. There was no way we could pay that. Even from the first I had a suspicion that these guys weren't legit. But now, I really felt it. There was no way to know though. So at the next stop they escort us off the bus and make us stay together in a group. Then one of the uniforms ran and said something to the bus driver before it drove off. That gave them more legitimacy in my mind, but we still had the problem of coming up with $1000 and not to mention, catching our plane. Now I don't think I have to mention that this was causing a lot of feeling of injustice for our American pride. Many in our group were thinking (and saying) "We don't have to put up with this, this is ridiculous, we had no idea, the sign wasn't in English." To that the head uniform said "Why did you come to our country and not know the rules? Why did you ride the bus and not know the rules? Why didn't you ask someone?" He had a good point, but we had asked the concierge at our hotel about which bus to take and she hadn't said a word about tickets and fines and such. So after about 10 minutes of talking back and forth on the sidewalk, the main uniform said to me "What do we do? What is the solution?" My brother-in-law and I said "We are very sorry, we would not have done this if we had known..." and he said "Ok, you give me your documents (passports) and I will write a ticket, not for my superiors, but for me." Again the thoughts that this guy was a phony started to creep up. I thought "He wants a bribe. He wants me to give him some money and he won't write us a ticket. Then he is going to run off with my passport." I ended up giving him a couple of our passports, ready to pounce on him the minute he turned to run. But, after looking at a couple of our passports, he said "You can go." We thanked him profusely and walked away very quickly.
Moral of this story...
When in Rome, don't ride the bus.
