How Italy Sees the World

Americans aren’t exactly known for their geographical knowledge. But, being an international student, studying international development, I thought it was time to brush up on my country-finding skills.  I went to a very large, very modern bookstore in Rome to buy a world map:

As I struggled to hold up the map alone and tape all four corners simultaneously, I happened to glance at the middle of the map, and what I saw caused me to say, “No. Nonononononononono. NOOOOoooooOOOooOOoOOoo!”

What was it that I saw?

Zaire.

As I mentioned previously, I am by no means a geography expert. That being said,  I do know that “Zaire” has not been a country for at least 15 years.

So I dug the map cover out of the recycling pile and looked for a publication date: 28-7-87

1987. Of-freaking-course.  Nice of them to update the PRICE, but keep a totally outdated, useless product on the shelves.

Fool me once, shame on you, Italy… but it is my fault, because I should have known to check the publication date before I spent 8 Euro.

Excuse me, I have to go re-write country names now.

Ciao, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Welcome to 2010.

4 thoughts on “How Italy Sees the World

  1. Nancy S. says:

    I like maps…more than I like GPS. I always look at publish dates of maps and books before I buy. Just sayin. You can recycle it by turning it into a book cover or maybe a decoupage (sp?) project? 🙂

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.