This Roman Holiday has been chalk full of neverending shenanigans from start to finish! We arrived Tuesday night and immediatey set up shop in our dorm. Sidebar: we have a particularly "interesting" roomie here, who is probably 40, and carries a doll that is dressed like a nun, with a porcelain-looking face. Um, psycho much!!!!!!!! After talking with some girls, and researching the address of a particular restaurant that Alison recommended, we set off into the dark Roman night in search of some food. What we weren't expecting was a fairly interesting night, complete with a chaffeured escort home, and a reservation for a pick-up by car in the morning.
As we arrived at the restaurant, after having walked the streets of Rome for close to an hour, probably in circles, looking for this place, we found an empty terrace, an empty reception area and the sounds of banging pots and pans- were we in the kitchen? We regrouped and walked back outside to confirm that, yes, we were at the front of the restaurant, and we said f it, we're going in! As we descended further into the place, we finally found the hostess and it opened up into this cute little atrium/greenhouse-type dining area. We were hoping to find a piano player but instead we found a family celebrating Grandma's 85th birthday. Of course we joined in as they sang her "happy birthday" and of course they took notice and sent us over glasses of champagne and pieces of cherry chocolate cake. We were satisfied... but this wouldn't be the end!
Pino, the owner of the restaurant, and friend of this table, came over to greet us after the family had finished and gone. He asked if we wanted to go to piano bar with him and us being the adventurous girls that we are, we said "of course!" At this point, we ascended the restaurant and were waiting at the car: a 1985, 2-door BMW convertible, with jumper cables in the back (hmmm, what could those be for???). Laughing hysterically, we got in the car and shortly after, we busted out the video camera because this was a ride that certainly had to be shared!!! We think we almost died a couple of times, there are hardly any rules to the driving here, and for what there is, there is even more apathy or total disregard altogether, so this ride was certainly the wildest ride in the wilderness! And we stalled, to top it all off, in the middle of the road- Pino just chuckling away and us absolutely dying with fits of laughter and shouts of "beep beep" which Pino mistook for "pee, pee!!!!" Oops!
The next morning, Tony (how original) came to pick us up in the Mercedes that we requested, but we're more certain was for the Ambassador to Finland that he was picking up after dropping us off at the Vatican. We weren't even sure if he was going to show up, but imagine our surprise as we found him lurking in the streets near the Beehive at 11am on the dot! En route to the Vatican, he kind of cornered us and told us he would be picking us up for dinner that night at 9 (oh shit, oh shit... how do we get out of this one?!?!?!?!) Well, we coudn't. But we did manage to conjure up 2 other girls from our hostel and bring them with us, so as to avoid a potential double-date scenario. We were hip to their jig! And they did buy us dinner, all of us! They wanted to drive us home but Bruno, Tony's brother (again, how original these names are here!), had downed an entire bottle of grappa and was not only slurring his words, but leaning on every pillar in the restaurant. We are certainly smarter than that, so after much bantering back and forth, they finally got the point that we were going to take the bus and they called us "stupid Americans" for opting for the bus over the drunk, free ride. Stupid DRUNK Italians!
So that leaves us with today- nothing too exciting, except a ton of site seeing and we think we probably walked the equivalent of 15 miles, sometimes in circles, sometimes not. We saw a bunch of great things today including the Colloseum, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Roman Forum, Santa Maria Maggiore, Santa Maria en Cosmidin (Mouth of Truth) and various other sites in our travels. Tonight, we were going to take the night off of drinking and prepare for our early morning flight tomorrow- but instead, we met Bryan, PhD from D.C. via Arizona, and he has coerced into having a beer with him- ahhh, just what the doctor ordered!!!
That's it for Italy and we're off to London!
Cheers!!!!
Kyle & Colleen
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