Happy 27th!

My birthday was fantastic! I had an absolute blast and considering I didn’t have my “real friends” around to share it with, that’s saying something. I started the night off at the Expat Happy hour near Campo de Fiori at 8pm. I met a couple friends there for a quick aperitivo but the party itself was boring and way too crowded, kind of a bust.

At 9pm we left to walk uptown to ‘Gusto. We arrived at 9:30pm (after stopping to say hello to "my buddy" Colin who we bumped into along the way. He organizes those Rome Party/Drinking Tours and I've been running into him every couple of weeks since I first arrived in the city, its pretty funny) and got a table close to the stage where Wendy would be performing later. We ordered a couple bottles of prosecco (naturally, it was my Champagne birthday after all!) and various dishes, all yummy (I had pasta with roasted duck and zucchini).

The group was a mix of people I’d met over the past month—Ben, my NYC filmmaker friend; Ana from my language course with her friend from Brazil and her Italian boyfriend; Frances, a pharmacist from San Diego that I met 2 nights before at a bar who was taking a month-long vacation in Rome; Kristen, a girl I met on the Orvieto trip and a couple of her Italian guy friends.

Wendy’s show was phenomenal… the woman can really sing and it was great b/c she played all my old favorites (Robin Thicke, Jill Scott, Prince, Sting) but with a little jazzy/bluesy twist. It was a really fun atmosphere. I was surrounded new friends, delicious food, never-ending glasses of prosecco and good music... what could be better?

After dinner, Ben and I joined Wendy’s friends at a club called Bloom near Piazza Navona. Aside from the fact that we paid 15 Euros for a glass of wine and the crowd was kind of corny, it was a fun way to cap the evening. We sat around alternately bashing the B&T-esque crowd and dancing to some serious house music. At one point, some cheesy guy kept coming over to try to talk/dance with me. I was dancing near a bouncer who ended up stepping in and telling the guy to get lost. Aw, my own personal bodyguard. When Ben and I left (around 3:30am), the cheesy guy was outside and said, “When you leave, make sure you walk with your nose in the air.” I just gave him a look like, boy, please.

Oh, there was one cute guy, a friend of Wendy’s. I didn’t really notice him till we got to Bloom (he was part of the group from 'Gusto, they all came over to wish me happy birthday) but throughout the night he would pass by and grab my waist or my arm, or make little comments. The whole time I was like, “Who is this random guy in the suit?” I couldn’t see his face b/c he would sneak up behind me then walk off before I had a chance to get a look at him. At the end of the night he came over to say goodbye and I asked, “Oh are you going home now?” And he said, “Yes, do you want to come with me?” with this look that was so… Italian. I don’t know how else to describe it. He just gave me this intense look then walked off. I guess he was sort of joking, sort of not. lol, I thought it was hilarious… and the man very sexy. But to tell you the truth, by that time it was 3am and I had been drinking since 8pm so you can't really trust my judgement on that one. In any case I told Wendy about him (for the life of me I can’t remember his name) and she said we’d all do dinner soon… hmm.