"Oh my gosh! Thank you SO much!" I said.
"You really looked like you need it." He said.
Come to find out, my sisters and friends hadn't arrived from their flight yet and I wasn't able to check in without them.
"You can store your luggage with us and go hang out on the rooftop if you'd like." he suggested.
"Okay." I said.
Had I know that I would've had to climb up 5 flights of stairs to get there, I probably would have given it a second thought. :)
Reaching the rooftop, I decided to take a couple pictures of the view:
One thing I noticed was that most of the other rooftops had these really ugly anntena things on them. You'd think that you'd need only one of these things. The rooftop horizon was littered with them.
"When did Rome become ugly?" I wondered out loud. Of course, I realized that there was so much more to see and this wouldn't be all there was. Still, my first impression of Rome was nothing of what I thought it would be.
Having had enough of the heat, I went back inside. Going back down the stairs, I ran into the Italian owner of the hostel who started speaking to me in endless Italian. The front desk guy came out and told me that he was suggesting I could get a bite to eat at a pizzeria just around the corner. I could get a special discount there since I was staying at the hostel.
"Ok." I said.
The owner patted the front desk guy's shoulder and pushed him towards me and began making hand gestures.
"He says that I should be your companion and show you where it is." The front desk guy said.
"Uhhh...okaaay." I said feeling a little uncertain.
Armed with a map, we left the hostel. (If you look closely towards the center of the map, you can see that our location is circled.)
As we walked, I decided that introductions were in order.
"My name is Shady." The front desk guy said.
The way his name is pronounced, sounds like the word 'shoddy' and I ended up asking him how he spelled it to try and refrain from laughing out loud.
It turns out that Shady is a writer and he's only been working at the hostel for 2 days. He's Egyptian-Italian and I don't remember for the life of me what his complicated last name is.
He taught me a couple Italian words and laughed at my pronunciation.
"Where are some other great places to eat?" I asked.
"You can eat just about anywhere in Rome and --" he started.
" -- get really fat?" I interjected, thinking again about Elizabeth Gilbert and how she said that she gain 25 pounds in the 4 month period that she lived in Rome.
"Ha ha! Well you don't have that problem at all and don't need to worry about it." He said looking me up and down.
I laughed....'cause I didn't know what else to do.
"So where's this pizza place?" I asked...changing the subject.
Shady looked at the map...looked around...and then looked back at the map.
"It should be around here."
We ended up walking full circle and it was then I realized that he had absolutely no idea where we were going.
"It's okay. Why don't we just head back to the hostel?" I suggested.
"I'm actually off work now." Shady said.
"You are? Oh, I'm sorry." I said apologetically. "I had no idea. So you're leaving now?"
"Yes, but I could show you around Rome. We should go dancing and drinking tonight." he said.
"I really need to check to see if my sisters have arrived and I'll be with them tonight." I said, feeling pretty awkward.
Shady shrugged and said, "Okay. I'm sure I'll see you around." And with a smile, he left.
I burst out laughing...my first 2 hours in Rome were anything but boring.
About 20 minutes later, the rest of my party finally arrived. I was elated to see my sisters! It turned out that they had their own travel stories to tell.
Because the front desk was closed for another hour, we decided to find some place nearby to eat since we were all starving! There was a place I noticed on my walk with Shady that was just around the corner.
"Let's check out Marconi Pub." I said.
We sat outside in the shade and exchanged numerous stories after we ordered some food and drink.
There was a lot of laughter. I snapped this picture and it's one of my favorites.
