aurorachrisma

I've seen a couple of threads on this forum that make mention of pickpockets in Rome. I figured I'd elaborate on the subject a bit considering my shocking and appalling first hand experiences with them.

I spent 4 days in Rome on my first trip to Italy. By the end of my first day there myself and all 3 of my travelling companions had lost count of the number of times someone had tried to pick our pockets.

Luckily upon arriving at our hostle the manager warned us about this and offered to lock up our paperwork and money in the safe behind the managment desk.

We each took small amounts of spending money out with us each day and kept it in our shoes. Best decisions we had ever made.

For the 4 whole days I was there I was hardly without someone trying to sneak a hand in one of my pockets or trying to nonchalantly undo the latches on my messenger bag.

The metro was the worst. A man attempted to get into my traveling companions backpack while I was blatantly staring at him. When I tapped him on the shoulder he stopped and just moved on to the next person. The next person caught him too and spent the rest of his trainride yelling at the pickpocket in Italian and the pickpocket just stood there with a "yeah, like I havn't heard this before" look on his face. Completely unphased.

We also went on a pubcrawl while there. All of the atendees were of non-Italian origins asside from two. The two managed to pick the barcrawl money out of 6 peoples pockets on the busride to the first pub and disapeared before anyone knew they were missing money.

Be careful about calling the pickpockets out if you happen to catch one though. While at the train station, waiting to buy my ticket to Germany, I caught one by the arm as he was trying to remove his hand from my back pocket. I kind of snapped and yelled at him in every language I know. He was quickly backed up by 2 of his friends and a police officer. Luckily the police officer understood enough english for me to explain to him that the man had been trying to rob me otherwise I have a sneeking suspicion I would have been ejected from the train station without a ticket or even arrested.

Moral of the story. Keep your stuff close to you in Rome.

The whole experience has been kind of an in joke with my friends and I ever since.

"Well, you know, When in Rome . . . "
"What? You want me to pick your pockets?"

__________________
When you get food poisoning from eating sushi in Paris, Have the worst hangover of your life from pubcrawls in Berlin, Cry because your wallet got stolen in Rome, and freak out because you realize you're out of money by the time you hit London just remember, "Pain is just ignorance leaving the body." LIVE AND LEARN.