CRAZY DRIVERS!!

 So after I arrived in Roma, a man named Guido (yes, that is a first name here not just the description of people off Jersey Shore) greeted the CAPA students and took us to our bus to go to Florence. Luka was the bus driver and though he did not speak much English he was extremely nice. We got to meet a lot of the people from the program on the bus ride which was a little over three hours.

The first thing Luka tells us is that we should not travel to Roma because it is not a nice place to be. When we asked why he told us that it is a dirty city because it is full of Romans and Luka was a Florentine. In Italy people from different cities do not like each other. Guido is a native of Geneva but he sounds British when he speaks English because his English teacher in school was from London. The bus that we rode in was a miniature version of a greyhound bus in the States. The highway that we rode of between Roma and Firenze was a very narrow two lane highway. I was gripping the seat in front of me hoping not to die most of the ride though. Luke felt it necessary to drive exactly in the middle of the two lanes. Other cars did not even seem phased by this driving and we were often three wide with the other two cars half in their own lane and half on the shoulder or almost scratching the wall of the highway.

Guido was making fun of us Americans because we were all fairly concerned about Luka's driving. He explained that in Italy the rules of the road such as lanes and speeds and turn signals, are more like suggestions and that no one pulls a car over on the highway. And as we watched we quickly learned that he was right. All of the other cars drove wherever they wanted on the road and swerved in and out of other cars and Vespas without ever thinking about using a turn signal.

Little did I know though that this was the smooth and safe part of the bus ride. When we got off the highway and had arrived in Firenze Luka only got worse. Most of the streets that are two lanes would only fit one lane in the US and the ones that are only one way are really only meant for Vespa scooters and really tiny cars. However, Luka took are giant bus down these little streets with no worries. We seriously almost hit 100 pedestrians and probably turned on only two wheels more than once. I was so happy when we got to get off the bus and into a Taxi but I learned that you have to be careful what you wish for because our cab driver was way worse than Luka and drove extremely fast the wrong way down one ways and in order to pass oncoming cars he drove on the sidewalk. IT WAS INSANE!!!

I survived though, but beware of cars in Italy - they are dangerous!