My trip to Rome has been planned for a little while. Nicole, a close student fellow doing her internship at the IFAD (international Foundation for agricultural development) invited me to pass an excellent weekend in this marvellous city.

Arriving on Friday night with a two hours delay (thanks EasyJet) the weather already started to get worse which did not really change throughout the weekend. Very quickly I got accused to have brought the Swiss rainy weather to Italy but I promise I did not do so – how could I with my Sonnegsecht (as my sister tells me from time to time).

At a friend’s place I got introduced to the first roman custom: Opening a Champaign that has been shacked, followed by running glasses to catch up the overthrown liquid means that somebody takes a drop with the finger and puts it behind your ear! This brings luck! Starting like this on Friday night already showed me: I will have fun and a lot of pleasure in Rome!

Because of the weather our activity plan has to be adapted from minute to minute accordingly to the change from sunny minutes to pouring rain and water all over! This means we ended up with shopping, but anyway: who could go to Italy without having been in one of the leather shoe stores? I was supposed to do so, than my money underlies some moving restrictions (to stay on my bank account)! However I could no resist! Looking for some boots for Nicole, I bought them and Nicole had to walk two days with wet feet because her shoes were equipped with an active and full automatic water exchange programme! We were trying hard to get some shoes for here, but sometimes it is easier to find a pair of particular small shoes for myself than for a “more” common one like Nicole’s!

Saturday night we went for the Pizzeria Formula Una in San Lorenzo, that was recommended by Tomaso ( a roman friend of Nicole) and I was very happy to see Italians all around. Without any tourists we had a wonderful Italian meal with entry plates, a super Pizza, a bottle of Chianti and of course: Limonecello! And all this for 28 Euros! We couldn’t complain!

Afterwards, some of Nicole friends joined us and we went in one of the Non-smoking bar just around the corner. By the way, in ALL bars and restaurants there is “interdiction de fumer”, a real “bonheur” I can tell you. As a convinced non-smoker I am just looking forward to get the same law in Switzerland. This will really increase the quality of going out, no more burning eyes, no more stinky clothes, no more lacking air to breathe, etc. etc.

After a choice of different colours and tastes of beers (see pictures) we got more and more tired, the eyes always getting smaller. Without having ignored the “Italian smell”, the Italian way of “looking in your eyes” and receiving some compliments during these two days, we had the great chance to see the gentlemen-side of their character. Early in the morning they brought us home on their own motorbikes. A ride through empty roman streets showed me that this city is museum in lifestyle and reality! Once again: I big thank you to Tomaso and Paolo for this wonderful evening and the ride back home!

Today morning, finally, I got up at 5 o’clock to get my airplane directly back to the office. Three nights are left now and I will leave for Bangkok… but till then there are still a lot of things do so. I will follow up!