Thursday, September 30, 1993 '" • ' l r " itubjeca - " the le itris' deniet and huaum you ldes might - must ak wpm if the y of college .diplomas were gtaduates? _ would have the technological edam* but our ,e would me add tlio °take sal iglsr awing that the a sow Oat .1 WNW* by Dave Berry Syndicated Colwnxist Recently, in an effort to gain insight into the European currency crisis, not to mention large quantities of weight, my family and I went to Italy. Our plan was to rent a car and drive around on winding, picturesque Italian roads. Because we are international travel sophisticates, we went in the middle of August, which is when the entire population of Italy, including statues, goes on vacation. It turns out that the No. 1 Italian vacation activity is to get in a car and drive around on winding, picturesque roads, at approximately the speed of light. I imagine that some traffic maneuvers are illegal in Italy. For example, you're probably not allowed to &We your car over a uniformed" police officer without,eignaling. But other than that, pretty much anything goes. When we picked up our car in Rome, I asked it man fot directions; he told inc to start by driving the wiring way up a one-way street. "Isn't that a one-way street?" I asked. "Yes," he said, shrugging. "But who reads the signs?" As far as I could tell, in 10 days of driving around Italy, there is only one strict traffic filini the 111111 afd lag ran pasta This is true it you are studying more than just one wham And whatrk) I mean hY "well-sounded"? A person who strives to be well-rounded will have more material at his or her disposal to form a more educated opinion. Also, this will enable him or her to back up his or her opinion with facts. Second, studying the arts 11611 humanities will give you a broader appreciation of art and literature. It will help you understand what a piece is getdiig at. Needless to say. lam not stating that you have to lik a piece of art in order to stdeOgisid it. is Vtose i . I<say. fare h. As the name , the prima* purpose of studying , the An exampht would be mac - an art form that everyone is familiar with, - Vora a seq. essolaratibirsOkpl!maniigijr: math and ale - sr all, no lives in, hat its Dave goes to Italy regulation: You are NOT allowed to be behind another motorist. If somebody is in front of you, you MUST, by law, get past this person, even if you are on a winding, hillside road the width of a strand of No. 8 spaghetti, next to a humongous cliff. Several times I was passed by drivers who, as far as I could tell, got past me by driving right off the cliff's edge, so that their cars were briefly hanging right out in space, the way the cartoon Road Runners does. We were on many small roads, because we stayed in some picturesque hill villages built a thousand years ago by people who put massive stone walls around them to indicate that these villages were never intended for automobile traffic. But you have to try to drive in them anyway, to reach your hotel. To do this, you follow a series of arrows, apparently put up by prankster villagers, which lead you through a winding maze of streets, sometimes passing the same point four or five times before reaching the center of the town, where the pranksters laugh and laugh as you inch your car through streets so narrow that they make the winding, hillside road look like the New Jersey turnpike, with stone walls DYttitliani," tit) 1410 MEE practically scraping you car on both sides and even overhead, so that you appear to be driving inside ancient Roman air-conditioning ducts, clenching the wheel in terror, convinced that you're about to drive into somebody's living room. The only indication that you are on a legal automotive thoroughfare is that will pass you if necessary by driving on your roof. Once we reached the hotel, we did fine, thanks to my sophisticated international knowledge of Italian. I had memorized the Italian expressions for "I do no speak Italian," and "Do you speak English?" As a result, on two occasions, I strode confidently up to the hotel desk person and stated, in crude Italian, "I do not speak English." Fortunately, the Italians are low on snoot, so we were treated well despite communicating, like tourist versions of Tonto ("We stay in mom with toilet, yes?"). We ate many wonderful meals in the Italian style, wherein they keep bringing you more courses, and when you finally stagger away from the table, they follow you to your room and stuff food into your mouth while you sleep. We also saw several hundred thousand important and historic ruins, cathedrals, statues, paintings, frescoes, mosaics, arches, relic, etc., which eventually formed one massive unforgettable throbbing historic blob in our minds. At one point, we were in a very important church in Venice, and a guide was pointing toward the historic spot where St. Mark was entombed, and my son, looking impressed, said, quote, "THE St. Mark?" But of all our experiences, the one I remember most vividly was when we were in the Dolomite Alps, an area of historical importance and spectacular natural beauty, and I realized -- as perhaps such visitors as Hannibal and Napoleon had realized before me -- that our passports were point across. Another example would be the musical Hair, the "rock musical" which the smog "Age of Aquarius" comes from. This musical contains "adult" language and some nudity in it, but it captures the spirit and protest of the sixties. In fact, next summer, the Eric Playhouse will perform it, and Erie is a very conservative city. In conclusion, the more Music, drama, art, etc. you experience, the more well rounded you'll be. In fact, I dare anyone reading this column to go out and see a show at the Roadhouse or Erie Playhouse. The United States alone has a plethora of culture in its past. This includes everyone from Louis Armstrong to Jimi Hendrix, from Mark Twain to John Steinbeck, from Rodgers and Havverstein to Stephen Smidheim, and the list goes on. If today's youth become more interested in trash than art, that's all the American culture will be —Pula missing. So I reported this loss to the local police, who typed up and handed me a detailed document that I believe said, in Italian: "The people holding this document have no idea what it says, but it will certainly get them out of our hair. Thank you." In my sophistication, I actually believed that this document would be an adequate replacement for our passports. You can image how comical this seemed to the authorities when we got to the Milan airport and attempted to leave Italy. So our plane took off without us, and we got to spend a whole extra day in Italy, rearranging our travel plans and trying to prove to the American Consulate that we were Americans and should be permitted to return home. During this process, I thought a lot about Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, whom our government cheerfully admitted despite the fact that he listed his occupation, on his visa application, as "Terrorist Loon." Not that I am bitter. Anyway, we eventually got home, bringing with us valuable insights into the European currency situation, the main one being that if you go over there, you should take a lot of it. Page
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