My Brother-in-law & Other Stories
By Johnny Novera

Our business wish

(Rome, Italy, 7/15/05): After resting at the hotel,  our first guided  tour of the City of Rome started at 4:00 p.m. Our English-speaking  guide, an Italian lady in her  40's,  in explaining the slow flow of traffic, said that there are 5,000 cars in Rome and 4,000 motor scooters.  “That is why a  road accident  happens in the city  every 30 minutes,” she said.  How  true! Just after a short distance, we saw a motor scooter sprawled in the middle of the road. It  collided with a car.

The  sightseeing tour by bus brought us to see centuries-old  buildings and monuments which included sights of St. Peter's  Basilica, the Forum and the Colosseum.  We got off at Fontana di Trevi, made famous by the movie, Three Coins in the Fountain.  As in the movie, we  threw  coins too to make a wish.  We limited our wishes to only three; we cannot afford more.   But let us share you one of our secret wishes: We wish  to come back  someday and bring a pail-full of Philippine coins and offer to exchange every tourist's euro coin  that they throw to the fountain at 1 to 2. In this way, we will double the number of  wishes they can make.  Think also of the  business we will have  at   the peso  rate to  the euro of  67 to 1! 

After the Fontana di Trevi, we continued the tour on foot until we reached the Il  Pantheon where we posed for some pictures. Along the way, the guide was explaining every historic street, monument or  building that we pass by, through a microphone that  she holds and a battery-powered earphone provided to each one of us. The guide holds  her half-folded umbrella overhead for us not to lose her in the crowd while we follow her.  Finally, at about 6:00 p.m., we reached Piazza Navona otherwise known  as the Fountain of the Four Rivers. Here the guide ends her day. She advised that we may  spend the rest of the afternoon to indulge in the favourite Roman pastime of  relaxing  with a pizza or cappuccino at a sidewalk café and watch the world go by.  Our tourist bus is fetching us back for the hotel at 8:00 p.m.