ramblings

This is a funny story. By the time Josh and I arrived in Rome, we had been in Europe for a week. Something we had learned to appreciate unexpectedly was a nice cold bottle of water. The most we ever spent on a bottle of water was 2.5 Euro (@ $4 U.S.!). The least we spent was about .13 Euro at a local market it Paris. Here are some pictures of bottles of water we consumed in different cities. And, yes, these were definitely worth taking!
Paris

Siena

Venice

Anyway, you get the point. Oh, another thing - more than once, Josh and I thought we were buying water, when actually we were buying carbonated water (with gas, as they say)...Yuck! So, a nice bottle of clean, cold water without gas, was a special treat, in any city. Until we got to Rome. In our Italy tour book, there is a little blurb about drinking water. It said this:

Unlike many Mediterranean cities, Rome benefits from a constant supply of fresh drinking water, piped down from the hills through a system of pipes and aqueducts that has change little from ancient Roman times.

Cool! Since we would be staying 4 nights in Rome, this would definitely save us a lot of money, and we were excited about the possibility of always being hydrated. Look, lots of people took advantage of the fountains in Rome. The book was right!
The long line of people waiting to fill up their bottles.

And, here I am filling up bottles for Josh, Deb (Josh's sister who met us in Rome), and myself.











Now, it all happened so fast. We were thirsty, saw the fountain, remembered what we read in that book. Deb trusted us. As I was filling up the last bottle (mine), Josh and Deb were already guzzling their cold water. I looked to my right and saw a tiny little sign that
read "Agua Non Potabile."
It really was tiny.

Everything started to make sense:
1) Bystanders were laughing at us, and
2) No one else was filling up their bottle in THIS fountain (just putting their feet in it!!).

Later, we went back to that Italy tour book to show Deb what it said. Much to our surprise, the last sentence in that paragraph stated:

Only if there is a sign saying acqua non potabile is the water not safe to drink.

Oh. Whoops. The rest of the day we joked...rather, I, joked about how Josh and Deb had drunk the non-drinkable water. Josh seems to think that since he grew up in Ecuador, his stomach is invincible, which I guess it is, because he never had even the slightest tummy ache.