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.

Buon Compleanno!!

Today is my birthday—and to top it all off, my Champagne Birthday (when you turn the same age as the day you were born) so it feels extra special and sparkly.

Tonight I celebrate by doing a few things: First, I’m going to a Rome Expats Happy Hour near Campo de Fiori which could be a nice chance to meet some interesting, like-minded people. Or at the very least enjoy an aperitivo with a couple girlfriends.

Then I head to ‘Gusto Wine Bar for dinner with a random mix of people I’ve befriended over the past month, some as recently as last weekend. One of these new friends is a singer named Wendy Lewis from Gary, Indiana (RIP MJ) who’s been living in Rome for the past 15 years. She tours all over the continent (she’s just getting back from a gig in Zurich as a matter of fact) and tonight is her first local show in a long while—it happens to be at 'Gusto, on my birthday. A bunch of her Italian friends are coming out for the show and she invited me to join the table and celebrate with them.

And this weekend I’m taking a week long trip to Cinque Terre, Turino and Milano—I forfeited a day at the spa (which is ridiculously expensive here by the way) in favor of a train trip up North to visit a few cool cities and see some friends I haven’t seen in a while.

So that’s my birthday! I’m off to give myself a manicure/pedicure and a relaxer (yes, I’m doing it myself… and yes, I know its bad but you can’t afford luxuries when you’re living the gypsy life!), a little beautification for the occasion.

Take a look at the lovely note I received from The Universe this morning:

A few years back, not so long ago, heaven and earth erupted into a major celebration with the news of your impending adventure into this very time and space. You see, someone like Stacy [last name] doesn't come along all that often. In fact, there's never been a single one like you, nor is there ever ANY possibility that another will come again. You're an Angel among us. Someone, whose eyes see what no others will EVER see, whose ears hear what no others will EVER hear, and whose perspective and feelings will NEVER, ever be duplicated. Without YOU, the Universe, and ALL THAT IS, would be sadly less than it is.

Quite simply:

You're the kind of person, Stacy,

Who's hard to forget,

A one-in-a-million

To the people you've met.

Your friends are as varied

As the places you go,

And they all want to tell you

In case you don't know:

That you make a big difference

In the lives that you touch,

By taking so little

And giving so much!

Stacy, you are so AWESOME! For your birthday, friends and angels from every corner of the Universe, including buddies you didn't know you had, will be with you to wish you the HAPPIEST of days and an exciting new year in time and space. You won't be alone!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Stacy!

How beautiful is that?? I realize everyone probably gets the same message but it brought tears to my eyes! How special am I! THANK YOU, Universe!

27 is going to be a fantastic, incredible year, I can feel it!

A bit of New York in Rome...

My friend Simona arrived from New York the same day that Martine left so I’ve been pretty much nonstop all week. She’s a late sleeper so we didn’t start our day until about noon—grabbing lunch before hitting the first site. I started my month-long Italian lessons at Dante Alighieri last Monday so for 3 hours in the afternoon Simona went to check out the museums and churches while I sat in class learning how to conjugate verbs. Italian seems to be a little easier than French (with some of the same root words so I can sort of follow along) so hopefully I’ll pick up a bit before I leave here (notice I said “a bit”. I’m not as naive as when I first moved to France and thought I’d be fluent in 3 months, lol). In the evenings, Simona and I would meet up after my class, grab an aperitivo (did I mention how much I LOVE the fact that you can go to a bar, order a drink and help yourself to a free buffet spread? Genius!), go home and relax then change before our nights out.

(compliments of the chef, our new friend)

On her first night in town we met up with a new acquaintance of mine. My friend M met a lawyer from Rome (we’ll call him The Expat) at an International Meetup in Paris last year while he was working there for a few months. She put us in touch back in December when he was planning a trip to New York for New Year’s. We never met but I picked up the correspondence with him a couple weeks before I arrived in Rome. He called me on Friday night and invited Simona and I to join him and his friends for drinks at this cute bar called Salotto 42. It’s a tiny bar but when the weather’s nice, everyone stands outside in the piazza with their drinks, the crumbling façade of a huge, ancient temple as the backdrop. Finding myself in moments like that is when it really hits me: wow, I live in Rome.

(she'll be back!)

Anyway, its funny b/c when I first saw pictures of The Expat on Facebook I was not impressed. Little did I know he just doesn’t photograph well—in person he was HOT. He was sort of flirty with Simona and asked to meet up with us before she went back to NYC. In the end, we played phone tag but didn’t manage to connect with him before she left so she told me, “Stace if he tries to talk to you, totally go for it. One of us should take advantage!” (lol, did I mention that I love that girl?). I’m all for persistence and reaching out to new friends but when a guy is potential dating material I guess you have to take it a little easy. So we’ll see if he calls again…

(pizza in the Jewish Ghetto)

The next night we were at a bar in Monti, again taking our cheap carafe of house wine outside to drink when two guys approached us—one was another lawyer (aka The Lawyer) who was flirting with me and the other took a liking to Simona. Unfortunately The Lawyer doesn’t speak much English so I’m not really sure what to make of it. He also seemed a bit aloof, but one night when I asked his friend about him (he popped up at the bar for like an hour then disappeared), his friend was like, “Do you like The Lawyer?! He went home but said if you asked about him then I should call him and he would come back and join us”. Um ok. Apparently he didn’t think I was interested (hello, we can barely communicate) so he was waiting for a sign from me.

(our new friends... for the week anyway)

The following night Simona and I ran into The Lawyer randomly in the street and he invited us to join him and his friend for dinner, I declined b/c we had to be up early the next morning. And Sunday night he sent me a text asking to take me to Frascati (a small town an hour outside of Rome famous for its wine bars and restaurants) but I already had plans. I mean, he seems nice but what in the world are we supposed to do, stare at each other? He’s cute but not that cute. So again, leaving the ball in his court. We’ll see what his next move is.

On Simona’s last night in town we went to this new place called Mater Matuta in Monti. We were walking home one evening and spotted a set of stairs leading to a really cute cave like bar/restaurant. The décor is all white with huge low hanging chandeliers over the tables. And they have a small room tucked in the back with a long table that seats about 10 and looks like its set up for a formal wedding (note to self: good place for a birthday dinner). Anyway we called to make a reservation for Saturday and it turned out they were having their opening party that night—10 Euros for a sampling of all the food on their menu and unlimited prosecco. So we got dressed up and enjoyed a delicious and cheap dinner before calling it a night around 1am. She left at 9am the next morning and now I am officially on my own in Italy.