Tuskan Times May 2014 | Page 14

Randene Rants: Tourists in Florence

By Jamie Randene

It’s a gorgeous day in Florence and you’re enjoying your cappuccino in a cafe. With every sip, you embrace the moment, until you see it approach. You try not to make eye contact, so it won’t come closer. Frantically gulping down your drink in your attempt to escape you realise you forgot to pay the bill. But the waiter is nowhere to be seen and in a panic you make eye contact with it. You pretend not to notice its loud presence, and hope it was a false alarm. But then… you hear it speak to you: “Parlay Inglayzay?” You’ve been sucked into helping those helpless travellers. Your day is ruined, but there are worse types of tourists. I’ve helpfully named them the Sir Snaps-A-Lot, and the Cram Packers.

The Sir Snaps-A-Lot

Not all tourists who take pictures are considered Sir Snaps-A-Lot; it takes a particular that any local can distinguish inside a crowd. They bend their legs at a perfect forty five degree angle, with their butt sticking out, stomach sucked in, chest forward, shoulders held back and elbows poking out. Then they cock their head back, and look through a $2,000 camera. Instead of being a normal tourist who focuses on museums or monuments, they take pictures of everything—literally, anything. They’ll push you out of the way so they can snap a picture of a random person’s child—and instead of apologising they finish taking their picture and look at you in disgust, waiting for you to say sorry as if it was your fault they ran into you.

The Cram Packers

We’ve all wanted to look at as many landmarks as possible in a limited amount of time, but Cram Packers just try to do too much. They want to see too much and they don’t have enough time. Their solution? Tour groups. Tour groups consist of about 20-60 tourists, taking up the whole street and walking as slowly as molasses. They get in the way of everything! They’re trying to see the whole city in a couple of days, so you’d think they’d be in a rush too, but no. It’s hot enough as it is in the summer in Florence, but these Cram Packers—with their sweaty bodies rubbing up against one another—do not help.