What's in 'all comforts'?

During the same trip to Rome in the same avenue (see post of May 24th) I found the following street sign. It announces all comforts 20 meters to my left. After hours of walking in the sun you can't image how much tempting a sign like this becomes! I already had an hotel booked but I was ready to loose my reservation for this promised land. I imagine myself immersed in a tub filled with cool water, having a cold drink while hearing soothing music.

My wife brought me back to reality saying that we should get moving. Occasionally, during the trip, the sign would haunt me, sparking my imagination to picture it as a oasis where a fresh breeze runs in the middle of an arid city desert.

When I got my hands on a web connection I went to look what amenities were included in 'all comforts'. This is what I found:
- Air conditioning
- Credit card accepted
- Groups welcome
- Historic building
- Laundry service
- Lift/elevator
- Pets accepted
- Room service - limited hour
- Front desk - 24 hour
- Front desk - fax service
- Personal newspapers
- Tourist information
- Limousine service
- Rent a car in the hotel
- Shuttle service from and/or to the airport
- Baby sitter

I think that the owner's of Hotel Duca d'Alba have a very broad interpretation of what all comforts mean! I also question what 'personal newspapers' mean? Although being a newly parent I have to say that the 'Baby sitter' amenity almost convinced me that in fact Duca d'Alba offers all comforts.

Are you up for a canton cooking Hong Kong snack?

During a weekend in the città eterna I noticed this colorful street sign full of little red Chinese balloons announcing a restaurant near Roma's Termini train station.

The phrase CANTON COOKING HONGKONG SNACK caught my attention. Isn't it a little demeaning to label your food speciality as a snack? Snack is defined as (1) a hurried or light meal (2) food eaten between meals. Even McDonald's labels their food as a meal, which sounds more solid and fulfilling. I typically don't associate Chinese restaurants to fast food, but maybe this is what the owner intended to transmit - "Before you go catch that train come for a fast bite in our canton cooking HongKong snacks!"

Another curiosity about this sign is that everything is written in English except for the words 'Restaurante' and 'Internazionale'. The first one is written or in Portuguese or in Spanish, while the second is written in Italian. Is quite ironic that the word 'Internazionale' is not written in English! Why this language confusion? Would they want to write word 'Restaurante' as 'Ristorante' (Italian) or as 'Restaurant' (English)? For sure the closest one is the english one, maybe someone added the extra 'e' at the end for mistake.

I have no idea how much it costs to create and maintain a sign like this in one of the main avenues in Rome, but it must not be cheap. Couldn't the restaurant owner invest a little more time in proof reading the sign? But if was a 'normal' restaurant street sign anouncing it probably wouldn't have caught my attention the way this one did, but not everyone is nerdy as I tend to be.

Where's my seat?

I don't have anything personal against Trenitalia, eventough I'm quite critical about how they operate. I went to Roma with my wife, our son and my mother inlaw to spend the weekend. I had bough our tickets on the Trenitalia website and I requested consecutive seats so we would all be together.

When I was checking for our seats I've realized the tweaking and sickening seating logic Trenitalia has selected. This was the numbering of our seating cluster:

As you can observe it's not the easiest number assignment. For example, if you look at 82 you would expect to find 81 or 83 near it, but no... they decided 88 was a better fit. It took me sometime to understand how the hell 88 landed there... During the trip I've noticed the time people would take to find out their seating number and I realized that most had a similar problem.

Why did Trenitalia decided to assign seat numbers this way? If we map the seats (red line) we can see that the numbers flow to the left/right seat on the opposite row, except on the window seats where it goes to the seat directly in front of it. There's a logic behind it, but it's not immediate to the tired passengers in a hurry to find their seats.

There are so many other easier ways to number the seats. For example:
1. ZIG-ZAG
In this option we would maintain consecutive numbers on the same side of the aisle, with a zig-zag shape.

2. Square
In this option we would still maintain consecutive numbers on the same side of the aisle, with a square shape.

3. Snake
In this option the seats on the same side of the aisle would have consecutive numbers, this is probably the most logical one if we consider that the seating number continues into other rows.

If you travel frequently by train please notice how the seats are numbered and let me know. Let me also know if you find a reason for the numbering option selected by Trenitalia.