Rome….
The City of Seven Hills…
The Eternal City….
I’ve always wanted to visit.
I like old things. I like spaghetti. It seems like an ideal town for me.
And as soon as everything is back to normal, I will.
In the past, when I thought about visiting, there was just one thing about that I wasn’t looking forward to.
My ex-girlfriend told me about this problem.
My friends who had visited told me about it.
And my niece, who was there last summer on her honeymoon, told me about it.
Here she is standing next to her husband in front of the Colusseum.
I’m talking about the masses of humanity…. The hordes of slow-walking picture-takers… The sea of loud-talking Americans…
But maybe very soon it will be like Las Vegas after 9/11.
Allow me to explain.
It was October 2001 and I was watching TV when I saw a news report about an empty Las Vegas.
The situation then was much like it is today.
People were afraid to travel and once-crowded cities and streets were empty. Back then they were afraid of terrorists. Now it’s a much smaller terrorist.
So I called some college friends. They flew out to Vegas. I drove. (Hadn’t my friends read about those terrorists?) And we enjoyed our discount weekend in Vegas without the crowds.
I imagine it will be the same for Rome soon. The tourists will return eventually. But there will be a window of opportunity in the month or two after. Crowds move slowly. I will move fast.
And I’m already learning their language.
Ten words yesterday.
Ten words this morning.
Motivation first.
Vocabulary second.
This is important.
Get the order wrong and everything is more difficult later.
Some teachers would disagree with me, but I’ve seen the problems it causes with my students.
And there’s one thing that definitely should come last.
I’ll explain more.
Tomorrow.
Until then, watch out for those tiny terrorists.
