My husband and I were visiting the Coliseum in Rome three years ago. Our talkative and self-deprecating Roman tour guide, a rare find among boisterous Italians, commented, while pointing to the Coliseum, that he did not know what happened to Rome, they used to be such great architects, engineers, and builders. He added that they devolved into Italians who take months to complete a simple job. When projects are finished, they are full of errors, and every team member blames somebody else. We laughed in agreement, having spent time in northern Italy and having dealt with the ridiculous bureaucracy. We had spent once all day driving from one office to another just to pay a landline phone bill.
