two kinds of people.....

Mike wrote on our blog that there are two kinds of people, those who like olives and those who don't. Well, I say he's right, there are two kinds of people but it's those who trust GPS systems and those who don't.

Bob bought a handheld GPS for finding places in Italy and we took off for parts definitely unknown--our principal's house for an open house. She lives about 15 miles away---you would think "anyone can find something that close". Fifteen miles here deserves hazard duty pay if you are routed through downtown Catania...and of course we were. Fifteen miles also takes from 30 minutes to an hour to drive anywhere.

The Italians have really fallen in love with the Round-A-Bout .. and just can't build new ones fast enough ... well at least they are building them faster than they are making GPS maps of Sicily.
(Read "bout" literally...as in brawl...as in 45 cars going in all different directions at once--with no defined lanes.)

Well, Bob's GPS did a fine job but with much nerve-racking, swerving-to-miss, cutting-in-front-of, brake-stomping episodes .. all while trying to Guess which exit might be the correct one since the GPS never heard of the three particular Roundabouts we had to travel through. To add to the mayhem, we had people trying to follow us. To add even more, there was a fender-bender we had to maneuver around bringing six (unofficial) lanes into one. [the followees lost the followers]

Okay, to confess, an additional distraction was me beating Bob on the arm yelling, "Pull over so they can catch up." (He says pull over doesn't happen in Catania). Or...me saying (again yelling) "turn that stupid thing off and use Nadine's directions---We'll never find it."

However, we did get to Nadine's house in under an hour, in fact, we were the first ones to arrive at her party. And...our friends who got lost even found it with me on the phone reading them the directions.

So...there are those who trust GPS systems and those who don't. Guess who's who.

p.s. Bob says I have to write that coming home, we just let the GPS guide us on a different route and we made it just fine (even in a half hour).