Sunday, October 5, 2008

Sunday morning bright and early (really, really early) and Lydia has come to pick us up and drive us to the station in Trieste for the train ride to Rome. We are excited as we will be flying along on Italy’s fastest train through the region of Tuscany. We met a wonderful young woman named Liza who studies at University in Trieste and lives in Florence during the week. I was dying for more info on Trieste’s history and have been slowly plodding through the book I bought, which I can barely stand It’s so boring and not getting much on my preferred lefty standpoint. One of the many things discussed in the four hours we traveled together was the interesting history of Venice. According to Liza, when the Pope lived in Venice, centuries ago, he decreed that Venice needed to be built up – there was a need for builders and laborers – in those day – remember this is a very long time ago – the Pope either directly or indirectly requested slaves to be taken from Slovenia and surrounding areas and brought to Venice to build the beautiful city we see today. Beauty, always a price it seems – I will endeavor to find out more about this. Apparently this could be the underlying reason Trieste and other Italians who were then part of Venice feel so snobbish towards the Slovenians. It’s incredible because Slovenians are wonderful people, wild and earthy, far more grounded and connected than say the people of Rome. The most important things in Italy – water and fashion don’t have any interest to the Slovenians; they instead are keen to keep up with Europe, this European summer the border crossings from Slovenia to Italy were opened permanently and left unguarded. It won’t be long before they are paying through the nose for everything like everyone else in Europe!

One of the other things we discussed on the train was the great mystery of the EURO – who set the price so that it would be that high. I found out that good and services in Italy that were 10 Lira – were transferred to 10 EURO when the EURO came in. However, at that time the Lira was only worth 50 cents to every EURO – wages however were adjusted to the EURO – so nobody earned more but suddenly everything was double the price. The benefit is that you can go all over Europe without a passport – small conveniences for double the price – supposedly there are employment opportunities and other benefits which outweigh this, but most of the Italians I talked to could not see this. The question is where does all the money go? If people are still paid their normal wage but the prices everywhere double, does this mean manufacturers, supermarkets (in Europe SPAR is huge) and banks made a shitload of money – yes I think it does. Missing millions in the change over from Lira to EURO have gone somewhere – of only on paper – and I would love to know where they can be found.

We hit Rome Running and didn’t stop – the children were amazing and patient; we even forgave them when the punched the shit out of each other in the Vatican foyer. Those people are no strangers to violence! (OOOHHHH)