B Vaughan

On Wed, 28 Jul 2004 13:19:54 GMT, "Edoardo Vancini"
<[email protected]> wrote:

    >"Tim Challenger" <[email protected]> ha scritto nel messaggio
    >news:[email protected]...
    >> On Wed, 28 Jul 2004 07:19:10 GMT, Edoardo Vancini wrote:
    >> > Leaders come and go.
    >> But nowhere as fast as in Italy ;-)
    >Fortunately enough, you're right! :-)

Actually, governments may come and go (some of them not soon enough,
actually) but the leaders stay around forever.
-----------
Barbara Vaughan
My email address is my first initial followed by my surname at libero dot it
I answer travel questions only in the newsgroup

Alan Harrison

"Daisy" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

    > Do we take it that the use of Mom indicates that you are American?

Not necessarily! It's used in parts of England, certainly the West Midlands.
I'm from Walsall and "Mom" is what I call my female parent.

Alan Harrison

Luca Logi

Tim Challenger <[email protected]> wrote:

    > > Leaders come and go.
    >
    > But nowhere as fast as in Italy ;-)

I wish it were true. We are already well into the third Berlusconi year
    :-(



--
Luca Logi - Firenze - Italy e-mail: [email protected]
Home page: http://www.angelfire.com/ar/archivarius
(musicologia pratica)

Jenn

Daisy wrote:
    > On Tue, 27 Jul 2004 21:32:24 -0400, Vicky <[email protected]> wrote:
    >
    >
    >>In article <[email protected]>, jenn <[email protected]>
    >>wrote:
    >>>a bunch of guys are paid in cash, board a train and are robbed -- and it
    >>>doesn't occur to you that this was an inside job -- that one of the
    >>>others saw his opportunity and took it?
    >>>or did he phone home for you to send money --in which case maybe this
    >>>is a scam on Mom
    >>The strange about this story is that the robbers were able to do their
    >>deeds without anyone else being awake. I've taken many night trains
    >>before - not once was I able to be sound asleep, and I was never the
    >>only one awake.
    >>I agree with the above - probably a scam on Mom or an inside job. See
    >>I'd probably do the same with my mom if only she wouldn't cjust have a
    >>heart attack and forbid me to travel anywhere forever.
    >>-Vicky
    >
    >
    > Do we take it that the use of Mom indicates that you are American -
    > and if so, have you travelled outside of the USA? - and if so, you are
    > one of the 60% who have done so - because 30% of Americans don't even
    > own a passport.
    >
    > So get real why don't you and believe that some people - yes even
    > young dance students of 21 years of age - do actually trust that
    > people are honest. That they aren't and that the world is populated
    > by criminals is quite hard to take.
    >
    > But hey there, the USA we now read has the highest prison population
    > in the Western world - so maybe that explains your attitude to crime.
    >
    >
    > Daisy


you are the one who apparently raised the dipstick who doesn't take the
most sensible precautions when traveling with cash -- and who can't
imagine that when a bunch of people know he has cash that they might
help themselves

petty crime is rampant in Europe -- only the most naive of tourists
would carry cash this way -- there are organized pick pockets, teams of
well dressed people who steal purses from breakfast rooms of B&Bs and
hotel dining rooms etc etc etc -- only a complete fool would think that
Europe is different in this regard than the US -- in fact petty tourist
oriented crime is probably higher in Europe than the US

Magda

On Wed, 28 Jul 2004 13:19:54 GMT, in rec.travel.europe, "Edoardo Vancini"
<[email protected]> arranged some electrons, so they looked like this :

...
... "Tim Challenger" <[email protected]> ha scritto nel messaggio
... news:[email protected]...
... > On Wed, 28 Jul 2004 07:19:10 GMT, Edoardo Vancini wrote:
... >
... > > Leaders come and go.
... >
... > But nowhere as fast as in Italy ;-)
...
... Fortunately enough, you're right! :-)

Quite ! Keeping a bad leader for eight years is only admitted on the other side of the
Atlantic.

Watcher

B Vaughan<[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>. ..
    > On 27 Jul 2004 10:01:45 -0700, [email protected] (Watcher) wrote:
    >
    >
    > >There is an Italian language series on our educational TV station, "In
    > >Italiano" I believe it's called. One of the episodes depicts a train
    > >robbery! A husband and wife tourist couple get on a train. Another
    > >couple join them in their compartment and offer them coffee, which is
    > >spiked and puts them to sleep. They are then robbed.
    > >
    > >I thought this was a very strange thing to include in a language
    > >course. It indicates that train robberies may indeed be a problem in
    > >Italy. (But I have ridden the trains extensively and have never had
    > >any trouble.....)
    >
    > I don't see how you jump to the conclusion that the plot of a
    > fictional story on a language tape indicates the existence of a real
    > problem.
    >
    >

Because I've never seen a similar episode in any of my German,
Spanish, or French studies, and because there are many tales around of
train robbers in Italy, who even pump gas into train cars to knock
people out. Many are apocryphal, of course, but the fact that this
was included in a language course could reasonably be taken as a
warning.....

Carole Allen

Au contraire, if you saw her speech last night, she is simply an
intelligent, articulate woman who has ideas...and is not content to
stand behind a man with a vapidly adoring look in her eyes. I just
don't get why some people (men and women) are so threatened by strong,
intelligent woman. BTW, when her REPUBLICAN senator husband from PA
died in that plane crash REPUBLICAN party leaders thought highly
enough to ask her to run to fill his seat. She declined, determined
to focus on raising her sons.

.
On Wed, 28 Jul 2004 11:05:49 -0500, Olivers <[email protected]>
wrote:
    >Of course, this time around, Bush stands an excellent chance at reelection,
    >since his opponent seems to possess all the charismatic appeal of a bowl of
    >unflavored tapioca, along with some substantial baggage, including what may
    >be a albatross slung about his neck in the person of his spouse whom it
    >seems impossible to conceal from public scrutiny. She may be at least to
    >the "Traditional Family Values" set, a big chunk of USAian voters, about as
    >appealing as scheduling John Ashcroft to speak at an ACLU convention).
    >TMO

Daisy

On Wed, 28 Jul 2004 10:18:32 -0500, Olivers <[email protected]>
wrote:

    >Daisy extrapolated from data available...
    >>
    >> About as much as all those non-travelling Americans who post so
    >> regularly about crime in any country other than their own!
    >>
    >> Daisy
    >>
    >I must admit, as a fairly well traveled USAian on behalf of all those non-
    >traveling Americans (most of whom it turns out are far farther traveled in
    >miles if not in border-crossings than Europeans since several states are
    >quite a bit larger than a number of European countries or amalgams
    >thereof), that the Americans I know (even the stay at home sort) are as
    >well informed about crime in Europe as most Europeans are knowlegeable as
    >to US crimes, the rates thereof and the localities in which they are most
    >likely to occur.
    >After all, with the world's highest per capita number of folks jailed, on
    >parole or on probation, at least the US can point to more than a decade
    >during which the national crime rate declined each and every year. Unless
    >a number of European publications sold or cited in the US are telling
    >whoppers, throughoput most of Europe, crime rates have increased. Although
    >the standards of comparison are subject to question (depending on which
    >interpreter you quote), the rates of several criminal offenses in the UK
    >actually exceed those in much of the US today.
    >There's no doubtr that access to firearms contribute to the US's murder and
    >assault with a deadly weapon crimes. Of course, the saddest part of those
    >crimes is the overwhelming majority of them occur within families and
    >groups of people related or otherwise acquainted with each other. That we
    >in US are better with knives than are British Asian gangs seems likely.
    >Any good LA gang fight in which one assaultee is stabbed/cut 18 times and
    >ain't deceased therefrom would cause the other gang to disband in shame and
    >embarassment.
    >Most USAians would maintain (and likely be supported by statistics) that
    >pickpockets and pilferage are more common in Europe than in the US. On the
    >other hand, I wouldn't leave my yard tools propped up on the mailbox even
    >in my nearly crime free rural suburb.
    >Many here - especially some of those seasoned travlers - folks widely
    >journeyed in the US and Europe - have come to disbelieve substantial parts
    >of your son't tale as he recounted it.

I read most of the above with interest and value your analysis.
However, on the point of my son reporting the theft to the police you
are wrong. We are responsible for his personal and travel insurance
policy and have now sent a claim form for him to complete and for him
to attach his police report. Oh yes, he did report to the police - no
doubt about that - and this report must be attached to the claim form
in order for a refund to be made. So in a week or so (depending on
airmail times because a fax is not acceptable to insurance companies
it seems) we shall have these documents in our hands and I will know
for sure won't I? Though I never doubted him for one second.

Perhaps I should quote the number of the report and the cabinniere
(sp?) handling this matter - who may or may not be the same person who
dealt with the other five or six complainants from the same train!
Or is this not enough as proof?

Some people seem to think the worse of everyone - that a son would lie
to his parents about a matter like this? I never heard of such a
thing, but then I live in New Zealand and kids here don't do this sort
of thing to their parents so far as I know.

Were this another of the forums I
    >read, I wouldn't be surprised to read that someone had accessed the Italian
    >police report (a "public document" in much of the US) to verify your claim
    >and the circumstances. Some Italians here have noted a lack of newspaper
    >reports (or that they had not seen any). Others, harsh cyncics who have
    >been parents (or known parents) of children given to financial peccadillos
    >and confabulations arising therefrom have even gone so far as to suggest
    >that your son't tale may not be of whole cloth (or even tattered gauze) and
    >that your credulence is colored by blood and motherhood.
    >So, before you accuse 'Merkins of being knowledgeless of European crime,
    >consider that those same 'Merkins have been long sensitive to tales of
    >crimes against persons and property that they are very familiar with the
    >nature of crimes and the situations in which they are likely to occur, in
    >both the US and Europe. Now, even some Europeans here, from countries
    >where there used to be no or little crime (although those of us who visited
    >Naples, Marseilles, Piraeus, Tangier, Palermo and a dozen other cities
    >might have experience to claim otherwise), but are now centers of
    >escalating criminality, rising toward US rates, are equally attuned to
    >crime and crime reports.
    >Could it be you who is are gullibly naive about crime?
    >TMO

I once saw one of these pickpocketing crimes take place on the train
from Schipol (sp?) airport near Amsterdam into the city. We had to
stand and put our cases between our legs while holding our zipped up
and locked hand luggage. There were a bunch of kids (late teens at a
guess) and certainly Middle Eastern - there was some pamphlet thing in
Arabic under one of their arms.

They created a diversion. They hopped off and on the train at 3
successive stations and ran around the carriage and area between the
carriages (where we were standing) as if searching for the train
stops. Then wham - one of them snatched the bag from the floor
beside a young woman near us just as the doors were opening at a
station and the lot of them were off the train and the doors closed.

It was quite dramatic. I lost nothing but always kept my hand-luggage
over my neck or looped round my wrist after that.

So I am not gullibly naive about crime at all.

There are warnings all over the hotels and other facilities in
California I notice about looking after your personal luggage. Oh
and by the way any hotels I have stayed in in New Zealand don't bother
with chains. A lock is enough.

Daisy

Go Fig

In article <[email protected]>, Carole Allen
<[email protected]> wrote:

    > Au contraire, if you saw her speech last night, she is simply an
    > intelligent, articulate woman who has ideas...and is not content to
    > stand behind a man with a vapidly adoring look in her eyes. I just
    > don't get why some people (men and women) are so threatened by strong,
    > intelligent woman. BTW, when her REPUBLICAN senator husband from PA
    > died in that plane crash REPUBLICAN party leaders thought highly
    > enough to ask her to run to fill his seat. She declined, determined
    > to focus on raising her sons.

She says; 'I grew up under a dictatorship', she forgets to mention she
was on the Colonial privileged side of that equation and the went on to
the best university in Africa in segregated S Africa.

Not my picture of an 'African American' as she calls herself.

Somebody better keep her away from microphones, or there will surely be
TV adds contrasting her statements with her real life experience. I'm
sure there must be a number of childhood pictures of her being cared
for by a 'house Negro'.

jay
Wed Jul 28, 2004
mailto:[email protected]


    >
    > .
    > On Wed, 28 Jul 2004 11:05:49 -0500, Olivers <[email protected]>
    > wrote:
    > >Of course, this time around, Bush stands an excellent chance at reelection,
    > >since his opponent seems to possess all the charismatic appeal of a bowl of
    > >unflavored tapioca, along with some substantial baggage, including what may
    > >be a albatross slung about his neck in the person of his spouse whom it
    > >seems impossible to conceal from public scrutiny. She may be at least to
    > >the "Traditional Family Values" set, a big chunk of USAian voters, about as
    > >appealing as scheduling John Ashcroft to speak at an ACLU convention).
    > >
    > >TMO

Tim Challenger

On Mon, 26 Jul 2004 17:58:08 +0200, Magda wrote:

    > On Mon, 26 Jul 2004 16:19:48 +0100, in rec.travel.europe, Arwel Parry
    > <[email protected]> arranged some electrons, so they looked like this :
    >
    > ... Train D368, 2315 from Roma Termini to Nice-Ville arr 0954? Leaves Pisa
    > ... at 0246 and arrives at Monaco 0934....
    >
    > And there are masochists who stay awake to take it at 3 am ?... LOL
    > Do you know at what speed it goes ?

It's supposed to go slowly,it's a sleeper train after all, so as to allow
time for those on board to get some sleep and arrive at a fairly reasonable
time in the morning. A similar thing happens with overnight ferries, often
waiting in or outside the harbour until morning before disembarking,
despite the fact they could have (or did) arrive 4 or 5 hours earlier.
--
Tim C.

Tim Challenger

On Mon, 26 Jul 2004 17:45:33 +0200, B Vaughan wrote:

    > Police the world over tend to say such banal and unhelpful things.

Their comment was quite reasonable. It is about what most police forces
say: let them take the money, don't resist.
--
Tim C.

Tim Challenger

On 28 Jul 2004 15:38:37 -0700, Watcher wrote:

    > Because I've never seen a similar episode in any of my German,
    > Spanish, or French studies, and because there are many tales around of
    > train robbers in Italy, who even pump gas into train cars to knock
    > people out.


    > Many are apocryphal, of course, but the fact that this
    > was included in a language course could reasonably be taken as a
    > warning.....

Urban myths are very contagious.
--
Tim C.

Tim Challenger

On Thu, 29 Jul 2004 14:38:06 +1200, Daisy wrote:

    > It was quite dramatic. I lost nothing but always kept my hand-luggage
    > over my neck or looped round my wrist after that.
    >
    > So I am not gullibly naive about crime at all.

But you didn't think to pass on your valuable knowledge to your son, like a
good mother.

--
Tim C.

Tim Challenger

On Thu, 29 Jul 2004 14:38:06 +1200, Daisy wrote:

    > Oh
    > and by the way any hotels I have stayed in in New Zealand don't bother
    > with chains. A lock is enough.

Why do you need locks in NZ? I got the impression from your posts that it
is a safe place.

--
Tim C.

Luca Logi

B Vaughan <[email protected]> wrote:

    > Actually, governments may come and go (some of them not soon enough,
    > actually) but the leaders stay around forever.


What foreigners do not realize is that old Christian Democrats
goverments in Italy (roughly, from the fifties to the eighties) had
short average lives, but the ministers were always the same persons,
sometimes shifting chairs, sometimes not even shifting the chairs. For
example, good ol' Giulio Andreotti was always either the PM or the
Foreign Minister, this way occupying some of the most important chairs
for more than 30 years almost without interruction. Even if there were a
lot of short duration government, the reality was much closer to four or
five goverments (depending if socialists were in or out), each seven to
ten years long.

--
Luca Logi - Firenze - Italy e-mail: [email protected]