More sociable early days in the eternal city

It began on Friday. About 4.30, my colleague Lidija asked me if I had plans for the evening. ‘Not yet’ I replied, thinking my weekend was unlikely to feature anything more riveting than grocery shopping, some facebook, and perhaps a trip to a pub on Sunday, to watch Wimbledon.

‘We’re going to the beach. By we I mean me and about 100 people from work. I can give you a lift and make sure you get back to Rome. Would you like to come?’

‘I’d love to.’ I was already mentally sweeping aside logical objections like ‘but I’m not dressed for the beach’ and ‘hang on – back to Rome???’

It was the best decision I’ve made since I arrived. I wasn’t the only one who’d gone straight from the office, and we all kicked off our shoes and pulled up chairs and tables between the bar and the sand. It was my first glimpse of the Mediterranean, so of course I had to go for a paddle, suit trousers rolled up past my knees. Lidija half thought I was crazy, and half wanted to come in too – in the end, crazy won out and she hitched up her dress and waded on in.

It was a gorgeous, balmy evening. One of the blokes DJ’d some laid back tunes, the bar turned on free seafood pasta and we sipped 5 euro mojitos as the sun set over ‘the Med’.

My bill for cocktails, dinner, and a taxi from Ostiense, where my lift back to Rome dropped me off, totalled 20 euros. You couldn’t even get to a beach in the UK for that.

Best of all, I came away with phone numbers for a couple of girls who are even newer than me, who also live in Trastevere, and are also keen to go exploring.

None of them made it out Sunday for Wimbledon, but it turned out not to matter. I’d spent Saturday doing domestics, and checking out the area around Piazza Venezia (there’s a Leonidas chocolate shop near the Scholars Lounge pub – does life get any better?). Opting for a new pub, with ‘fewer tellys but cheaper pints’ proved the right call. Over a cracking 5 set epic between Federer and Andy Roddick I started nattering to a bunch of fellow travellers and ended up going for a meal after the match. If I can string a few more of these together, Rome won’t be a lonely place for long.