But Papa, I'm a REAL Guide!

I think this phrase, inspired in large part by Pinocchio, every time I get a tour. After a period of very many scheduled private tours, I found myself this week back giving public tours, or at least trying to... Roisin has a gift for getting tourists to follow her places, but I think it has a lot to do with the fact that she spends an hour at each site asking everyone she can find. Deciding to try this approach, I spent a full hour with her in Piazza San Pietro this afternoon, asking anyone who looked like they might speak English if they would like a tour. We had decided to stop at 2pm, because starting much later than that increases the possibility that we will not make it all the way to the Sistine Chapel by the time it closes at 4. At five minutes to 2, I desperately asked a middle aged couple standing near me if they wanted a tour, and though they turned out to be from Holland, they said yes.

Great success! My first real recruited tourists! Those ones at the Pantheon don't count, since I was offering them a free tour. These folks paid me for my time. At the same moment I snagged these two people, Ro got a little Scottish family to come with her, so we headed off to the museums, winking at each other and trying to remain professional. The tour was uneventful, and I spoke carefully, since their first language was Dutch. They still got my jokes about Michaelangelo, however, so they were clearly fine in my book. In fact, they were doing quite well until the end of the tour, when the time came to pay me for my services, and they shortchanged me. I didn't notice until I had walked away, but perhaps it was just a miscommunication, since in all fairness the husband didn't speak English as well as his wife. Still, I can't complain, because it felt great to actually recruit tourists, and making a little bit of money is better than making no money at all, especially when everything in the stores is on sale...