He Called me Hadalina

So I'm not one who typically falls for lines, but when I stumbled into a cafe on a side street in Rome and asked for the 15th time on my trip for a "table for one" and the waiter responds with "what? no! my beautiful princess", I fully blushed.  An Italian man used the line that any self respecting single woman should know is just that, a line, but I went for it; hook, line and sinker.  Alessandro walks over to me, tells me not to eat much because he was taking me to dinner that night; then asks me if I was married; then asks me what I wanted to order from him.  I'm quite certain this is a good order of business when picking someone up while having this Italian accent!  Now, when he called me Hadalina, there was no turning back.  He couldn't understand my name and gave me a better version of a nickname than I've ever heard!


This waiter had invited me to dinner, this stranger wanted me to meet him when his shift was over.  I figured here I am in the most romantic city I have ever been in, walking around alone, touring alone, riding the subway alone and eating alone and now this Italian man wants to take me to dinner?  Why not!  I thought to myself, I'm in Rome, do as the Romans do.  The issue with Italian men is I'm certain they think the phrase American women use is "When in Rome, do a Roman", so they choose to use lines like this in hopes that at least one out of the 20 women a day they give it to will fall for it.  Here I was.


Let me tell you about the man who asked me to call him Alex, but I refused to give up Alessandro.   We had a few things get lost in translation and struggled sometimes in conversation, however, I was so intrigued with this fully tattooed fellow with one dirty brown tooth.  He speaks 4 languages, he lived in Paris for 4 years, he is a lifer as a waiter, he gives compliments that would make anyone melt and in all this worldly knowledge and experience of all the restaurants in all of Rome, he took me to the only restaurant owned by a guy from New Jersey and our waiter, his friend, was from Massachusetts.  Here is a guy who could have shown me any part of Rome, and his favorite tucked away hideaway was from the Jersey Shore.  It didn't matter, I still adored the attention, I loved that he ordered for me in Italian and had a conversation half the patio over with a table of Italians what I was imagining was about how he was out with this blonde American girl, but in actuality he was talking about soccer and the marathon that was going on in Rome the next morning.


So to my dear Alessandro, though we will never speak again, thank you for showing me a nice evening in Rome, not alone and changing my stay for one evening, into a Romantic Roman holiday!  With blushing, Hadalina