11 a.m., Via Genova, south Turin

Believe it or not, I’ve gone through a couple of tanks of gas driving between Turin, the Alps and Penerolo. This Nissan is so small, it’s gotta get 50 miles per gallon. And when you see the price of gas over here, you see why everyone drives these tiny circus cars and not Lincoln Navigators, Hummers or Cadillac Escalades Besides the fact those monsters couldn’t fit down most Italian streets, it would cost a small fortune to fill them with gas over here. It’s a little confusing in Italy because the price of gas, of course, is in Euros. And the price is for one liter, not one gallons. The price per liter here is about 1.30 Euro, or a little more than $1.50. So do the math, folks. That’s about $6 per gallon! To fill up my little sewing machine on boat trailer wheels, it cost 45 Euro, or about 53 bucks—for less than 10 gallons of gas! So next time you complain about gas being $2.50 a gallon, think about the poor Europeans.

And next time you complain about some tourist not knowing how to pump their gas, think about what it would be like to see gas pump instructions in a foreign language. You’d be confused, too, if you were over here. Heck, I’m fairly certain there’s no two U.S. gas stations where the way to pay and pump your gas is the same—even with the same brands of gas. Fortunately, in Italy, a lot of stations still have attendants to help dimwitted tourists like me. At this Shell station, Gianni and Luca here helped me out and were about the most friendly people I’ve met here and Gianni even spoke some English. At these prices, I guess he does need to explain to Americans what the deal is with these Euro gas prices. Is there rocket fuel in it?