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What we saw in Italy this past week was just another page from what can be called the “entitled traveler’s guide of gauche behavior” by American tourists. They made a Hollywood film about the ugly American, these two are accentuating the meme.
CNN tells us, two American tourists, aged 24 and 25, climbed over the railings, walked up the ancient steps to the second level of the Colosseum and found themselves a perch under one of the many arches facing out toward Rome to have a beer - it was 0530 hours on Monday, 15 November.
The Rome Carabinieri didn’t get to them while they were still in the Colosseum, but did catchup to them on the street outside the Colosseum. The police report reads: “During the early hours of Monday morning some people noticed two young men drinking beer in the Colosseum, facing outwards on the second level. They alerted a police car nearby, which then stopped the two young men on Via dei Fori Imperiali. The two were handed an €800 ($900) fine.”
For these two, that beer turned out to be an expensive brew.
Continuing with CNN, they tell us that these two yokles weren’t the first to get socked with fines for their behavior. Two tourists were given similar fines for going swimming in a famous fountain. What’s wrong with just throwing your three-coins into the fountain, and keeping the body for the hotel pool?
