Proceed Cautiously

By Frank McCloy

CULTURAL DISSONANCE starts with assumptions and expectations. Telling friends and family of my trip elicited a superfluity of advice, warnings and recommendations, which when coupled with readings for class and personal research provided me with an ample bank of assumptions and expectations. A few of said suppositions included great food and history, warm and accommodating people and unfortunately, gypsies and pickpockets. Considering that this is my first trip to Europe, the latter really stuck in my head as a cause for concern. My girlfriend and I visited Rome a week prior to Cagli and as we searched for a taxi from the airport to our hotel we encountered someone attempting to take advantage of us. Obviously, this put us on guard and after averting the potential scam we made our way to the hotel. The lady at the front desk greeted us by stating she had been waiting for us since yesterday. Not sure exactly what she was talking about we smiled and asked for our room key. We were then asked to leave our passports at the desk as she walked us to another building where our room was located. We were wary of the situation and proceeded cautiously. Upon entering our room my girlfriend began crying and talking about not feeling safe. I went to back to the front desk to ask about our passports and some sort of clarification. The lady explained that it is customary for hotels to copy passport information and that we had inadvertently booked our stay for a day prior to our actual arrival. Upon further inspection, we certainly did goof up our reservation. While I felt secure about matters, my girlfriend was still a bit shaken.