Italy - Denmark Trip - Day 22

Friday November 20, 1992 – Rome, Italy
I met Don on the shuttle bus, and we rode to the FAO building together. He had never been to Europe and was a little overwhelmed with the language gap and everything else. I had arranged a meeting with Klaus Janz who is K.D.’s counterpart in the “F” building. The meeting went O.K. and Klaus gave us a little background on the project. I had asked him to arrange a meeting with the head GIS person in the main FAO building, Mr. Ataman. Klaus setup a meeting for next Tuesday which, unfortunately wasn’t soon enough. Don and I were getting anxious about getting going so we decided to go over on our own today unannounced. This didn’t go over well with others in the office and everyone started scrambling to try an contact Mr. Ataman to let him know we were coming over. We missed the 2:30 PM bus so we decided to visit the “F” building GIS and remote sensing lab. We ended up talking to just about everyone in the lab in an impromptu meeting of four other people beside Don and myself. I was impressed with how genuinely interested they seemed in helping us. We caught the 3:30 PM bus to the main FAO building for a 4 PM meeting with Mr. Ataman. This meeting also went well, and Mr. Ataman was very supportive. We left around 5 PM with the agreement that we would return Tuesday at 2:30 PM. Don and I met later around 7 PM and went to the Hotel Lancelot for dinner with Ron Groves. The dinner was excellent and cost 25,000 LIRE which included all the wine you could drink! The menu at the Hotel Lancelot had only one choice. There were six people seated at my table including Don and Ron, a couple on vacation, and a woman who was a professor of communication. The conversation ranged from politics, religion to the Consent Decree that the U.S. Forest Service Region 5 was now under. The Consent Decree was basically a court order requiring the U.S. Forest Service Region 5 to hire more woman. Being that I’m a male, this was a bit of a sore issue for me since it blatantly discriminated against males. However, I was surprised that it also offended the woman on vacation. I left with Don and the professor and found out the Metro wasn’t running. So, I tried to find a bus but ended up walking back to Hotel San Anselmo.