When in Rome…my experience in Italy’s capital

By Alexandra Paskhaver • October 24, 2025 1:30 am

When in Rome, eat plenty of gelato.

I found myself in the world’s capital of ice cream this past year.

But instead of learning how gelato is made (I always assumed it grew on ice cream trees), I was mobbed with a bunch of foodies insistent on teaching me how authentic Italian food tasted.

I had an Italian give me a 30-minute lecture on how to make proper margherita pizza (you have to use provola cheese, not provolone).

The same Italian also told me that if you put sugar in your coffee and the sweet stuff sinks like a rock, the coffee’s no good. Sugar sinks slowly in proper coffee, he said.

At this point, I was already mentally having pizza and coffee, so I didn’t understand much else in his food-related lecture.

That’s Rome for you.

But Rome is… well, Rome-y. By American standards, there are a lot of buildings that look really old, and a lot of people who look very young taking stupid photos by the buildings that look old.

Then, of course, there are the tourists. You couldn’t heave a brick without hitting one of them.

They descend like vultures on… well, provolone pizza and bad coffee. And they crowd all the good attractions.

Me, all I want to see when I go to Rome is the Colosseum. That’s the Italian name for “place where gladiators fight to the death and stuff.”

But you go there and all you see are pigeons. Pigeons may be impressive, but they’re certainly not channeling their inner gladiators there at the Colosseum.

Or maybe they are, and pigeon gladiators are just not that impressive.

Thinking about gladiator fights made me want gelato again, so I tried to break through the ranks of people standing with selfie sticks.

But those guys were like classical statues (another thing Rome is full of). I couldn’t break through them no matter how hard I tried.

It occurred to me during my feeble attempts at escape how puny I would be as a gladiator. Heck, I might even lose to a pigeon.

Fortunately, there was a gap between an Italian and an American arguing over whose country produced the best kind of soft drink.

I barrelled through and finally found myself at a gelateria.

For those unfamiliar with it, a “gelateria” is Latin for “place where there are many delicious flavors, which is why it sounds so fancy.”

I get a scoop of the fragolina, a delicious strawberry-like flavor. But the minute I step outside, I’m hounded by pigeons keen to get their beaks in my ice cream.

I fend off the pigeons by spinning my arms like a pinwheel. Channeling my inner gladiator, I even heft a kick or two at the particularly fat ones.

At last, I’m left in peace with my gelato. As the sun starts to set, I almost begin to ruminate on the beauty and the grandeur of Rome.

Then a group of tourists asks me to take their picture. I wish I could send them to fight gladiators in the Colosseum.

Copyright 2025 Alexandra Paskhaver, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Alexandra Paskhaver is a software engineer and writer. Both jobs require knowing where to stick semicolons, but she’s never quite; figured; it; out. For more information, check out her website at https://apaskhaver.github.io.