Taking on the Roman bus system

After surviving four months of the Roman bus system, I have a new appreciation for the simplicity of New Jersey traffic and mass transit.

What is this article doing on the sports page? See, in Rome, traveling around the city requires more athleticism and competition than any game I've ever played. In Rome, without a complex and calculated strategy, you are roadkill.

To make your way around any city, you have to tackle a number of obstacles — traffic, large crowds, piles of trash and dog poo and more. But on Roman streets especially, chaos is the only rule. Even American literature attests to this idea. In his book "Beach Music," Pat Conroy writes that Romans "never just drive — they aim."

In other words, navigating the city is difficult enough for a native — not to mention for the numerous tourists who clog Rome's streets. Besides the traffic, Roman drivers are constantly on the alert so they don't run into any ancient ruins. Only the pope, whose Popemobile would put any revamped car on "Pimp My Ride" to shame, can escape the insanity of Roman traffic. It really makes traveling easier when streets are blocked off for your cavalcade.

If you are unfamiliar with the nonsensical patterns of Roman traffic, though, you have absolutely no hope of surviving without professional help. You must take a bus or taxi whenever you want to get anywhere in the city. Bus and taxi drivers are trained to maneuver through the madness (and, undoubtedly, trained to flail their arms wildly and yell "stronzo" every time a car the size of a large insect cuts in front of them) — all while smoking a cigarette.

But taxis are out of the question when you're on a student budget, as I was.The bus system is the only option.

The aim of the game was to get from Point A (in this case, our convent-turned-dormitory) to Point B (whatever monument we were studying on that particular day) without losing any of our limbs, belongings or sanity.

I entered the game at a disadvantage — I had never before ridden a city bus. I come from South Carolina, where we have yet to invent vehicles that carry more than five people at a time. My Princeton roommates remember how overwhelmed I was on my first New Jersey Transit train ride. "You mean there are dozens of other people on this contraption going the same place we're going?" The concept was mind-boggling.

Unprepared as I was, in Rome I was thrown into the world of mass transit. It's a world of holding on for dear life as the driver whips around corners, of ignoring the various body odors of the people around you, of shoving your way through throngs of mulleted Italian teenagers.

Surviving this with your dignity intact is no easy task. Mental preparation is key. My friend Alex gives this advice: "Expect to fall onto the little old lady with a cane standing next to you, and then feel bad that a) you fell on her and b) a little old lady with a cane stayed upright and you, a strapping college student in your prime, did not."

It didn't take me long to learn the Golden Rule of bus riding — do NOT fall on a nun. That's the easiest way to reserve a spot in hell.

In fact, the only sure way to get what you want on the bus is to become a nun. It doesn't matter if the bus is so packed that you can't even tell whose elbow is about to rupture your spleen. If a nun boards, the entire busload of people will make like the Red Sea and guide her to an automatically vacated seat.