Rome. Wonderful one day, rubbish the next.

Feeling a bit unimpressed with Rome today. It's now the end of my fourth full day. The language barrier is a problem. There are not many English speakers here - apart from around the very over-populated tourist parts. But, as soon as you get away from those, it's arrivaderci bilingual-ness, hello 'non-parla Inglese'. I shouldn't complain...after all I can't speak Italian, why should I expect them too. But, could ya just try...a little? There are a lot of tourists here in Rome - the eternal city, the cradle of civilisation.
Here's some fun I had yesterday.
Found a magnificent paticceria, couldn't wait to patronise it but soon found it had a near unworkable system for ordering, paying etc etc, if you can't speak Italian. Because, a girl wearing some sort of rustic scarf has to serve you the cakes or biscuits (a pointing arrangement if you don't know what they are called)...and there are a range of charges depending on whether you help your self, you stand to eat, you eat outside or you sit and get waited on. I'm not sure what the range of charges is...cause it was all sort of, explained to me by the one person who had a little grasp on English - in a very big shop with a very large staff. In the end, I ordered a smoothy from the counter (for which I was charged 8 euro!) and then ordered coffee etc from the table and paid extra because I couldn't be bothered trying to work the system.
However I went back for breakfast the next day. Now it was super busy..and of course no discernable queueing system. Everyone just trying to jump in there and get served.
So, I get a guy to give me a pastry on a plate. Yay, now I just need to order coffee. There are maybe 12 people waiting for coffees in a narrow little corridor with a thousand others trying to get past. Complete chaos.
OK...I'll go out and sit down and order my coffee from the waiter. Problem solved. No...for some reason - today - or is it that it's breakfast time? - there's no table service. Right.
I eat my pastry. I sit. I contemplate.
I go back inside and now I get another pastry and, this time, I am given a docket by the girl. Then I order coffee from the 2nd person and pay for the whole lot - except I didn't pay for that first pastry. But, it's so crazy that they wouldn't know their asses from their t**s. So, now we're even.