At the end of Balzac's "Lost Illusions," the hero looks down upon the "hive" of Paris and vows to conquer it.

Pere Goriot.

You made me want to go to Rome, dammit, and I can't afford it.

There's something about a place like Rome that's pretty much the essence of "ineffable," and yet this piece is the perfect expression of the haunting, maddening ineffability that's Rome. Thank you.

I realize Gary's from the other side of the tracks, and I shouldn't be provincial, but we've never been able to afford overseas travel, and reading the giddy musings of his SEVENTH visit to Italy is not what I want to hear in this gloomy summer of no money and stay-at-home vacations.

There's nothing I hate more than going to a sophisticated European city wearing my t-shirt, fanny pack, and confident expression and finding it overrun by resentful, snide American hipsters who are anxious to pass for locals and who wear their lefty politics on their sleeve in order to ingratiate themselves. I may not have had the advantage of a lot of education or money, but by golly, I made it here and I'm enjoying it and I'm SO sorry if I embarrass you by being who I am.

Besides, who would you have to laugh at or feel superior to if it weren't for us? That we annoy you so much shows clearly some deep-seated worry about your place in this world.

Hey, have a nice day!! :-)

It helps if you go in the off-season. In Italy, there hardly is an off-season. But there are a few fewer people there.

unless you're one of the loutish Americans who feels the need to announce their presence upon every entrance, it seems you're the one with the misplaced ire. If you've traveled abroad much, you know exactly of whom I speak. If that's you, then we are indeed embarassed. If it isn't, wear your fanny-pack with pride. And enjoy the sights!

Talk about focusing on the small details, I couldn't help but wonder, and keep wondering, whose "So what" is on the iPod...

Dare I hope that it is The Anti-Nowhere League's 'So What'?

Could there be other ex-dirtbags who have SPQR tatooed on the back of their neck?

I am sad to admit my trip to Rome felt exactly like a Bataan Death March much to my wife's chagrin.

So what if I had big white sneaker-feet every day but the one on which I attended a Papal Audience. I had to see as much as I could of a city about which I had dreamed and studied my whole life.

I saw a little. I sensed a lot more. I kept getting brought up short: names I knew, absolutely numinous places, were stops on the subway. The stones felt like the hardest pavement I have ever felt. It was impossible to find a bad meal, and I didn't try. It's hot, it's crowded, it's beautiful, it's hard to deal with, and I would go back next week if I had time and money to do so.

I was stunned. Today's Romans and the Romani...they're still present; I sensed them, and you can see them in the faces around you.

No point pretending one is anything but what one is: they're Romans, which is to say, they're not stupid. It's pale, it wears big sneakers, it walks around looking as if it's being given a phenomenal treat; and if that's not enough, they can read body language.

They couldn't have been better hosts, either. And the tourists I ran into in the Piazza Navone were perfectly well-behaved.

Having traveled with an itinerary nut to Italy I know what its like standing in line with hundreds of visitors from all over the world to many Italian attractions. At no point in time, however, was I being prodded by bayonets. I understand how arduous waiting in the sun for hours for something that will take a few moments can be, but have we forgotten the horror those poor American soldiers endured to the point where we can compare our inconvenience to it? The author is truly blessed to be able to travel to a place like Rome and the rest of Italy multiple times, especially when excess work and income are hard to come by. To compare this blessing with one of the most heinous events of the most heinous war in the history of mankind is more of an insult to my pride and sense of being an American than any amount of obnoxious behavior by rude Americans abroad. I suggest you view "The War" by Burns to see this horror and maybe you will realize your blessings instead of looking a gift horse in the mouth.

I was hoping that too, but as much as I respect Mr. Kamiya's writing, I doubt he's that cool. Underneath the highbrow self-awareness, this is, after all, an American tourist complaining about typical difficulties encountered during a family vacation. The Anti-Nowhere league song would be a soundtrack to nights prowling small streets and seedy taverns, not buying your kids gelato and complaining about the heat. I suspect it is the much more snooze-inspiring Miles Davis track.

I'll never forget how this particular object-name (which I have always found somehow obnoxious in and of itself) came up between myself and some English travelers I met in Italy. In the context of English slang, it IS, in fact, outright obscene. Someone even remarked that it could be a verb!

Hey, punx, get over your old selves and stop slammin on Miles.

My Uncle Joe's mind snapped on Bataan. He lived the rest of a very long life deeply broken by what he experienced there, without a shadow of help from a society that just wanted to forget about the horrors of war in a rush to find new enemies to fight.

Even so, I fail to see how it dishonors his suffering and that of so many other "battling bastards of Bataan" to engage in a little good old all-American ironic exaggeration. *I* thought it was a funny comparison, anyway...