Mini-rant

Okay, so I just needed to vent about something- and what better forum than this public blog.

Alright, so this morning in Italian, we had to take down someone's biografia (ask them questions about themselves etc...) So I was paired with a guy from Orlando. We asked each other questions from the handout my teacher gave us but then we had to make up two additional questions, so I asked him if he was traveling at the end of the program.

He said that he was going on a cruise so naturally I asked him where-to and he said that he didn't remember the destinations of the cruise but he knew that he was leaving from Venice.

Okay, so...wow...

I told him about how the single cause of abnormally high waters in Venice was the decision to dig out the lagoon. And he said to me, "It's going to be under water before they know it." And then he asks my teacher if it's true and she said yes and that it is unstoppable. I said, it is entirely preventable if they stop allowing these cruise ships to come in and they do something to help the city other than building 35 million euro bridges that are horrible looking and incongruous with the city. 

Then someone in my class said that he thinks that the bridge is a good thing and that it will bring more tourism. First of all, it wouldn't 'bring' tourism...I would make it easier for tourists to get around but it wouldn't bring people to the city...so anyway...I said that he was wrong because there wont be much tourism if the city is under water and that people have been traveling to Venice forever and that the lack of this one stupid bridge wouldn't stop them and neither would stopping cruise ships from coming in. He then added that he would be going on this same cruise that leaves from Venice...

They were being so ignorant! It made me so mad to think that a person studying in Italy, who has been to Venice could accept that they are doing something wrong and justify it by saying that there is nothing that anyone can do, so the government might as well spend the money on things that will increase tourism. I really couldn't believe what I was hearing. I was also disappointed that my professor said that it was inevitable. That could have been a good opportunity for her, as an Italian, to tell these people what they are doing wrong and how they are destroying this beautiful city so completely carelessly!

I feel a bit better now, but wow, that was a whole lot of arguing for 9 AM...