It's 11am in Italy. Okey dokey.

It's 11am in Italy right now. Which means that in good ol' California, USA, it is 3am yesterday.

I made two telephono calls to Italia today. I made the first one around 1pm (my time). I needed to confirm a new hotel reservation. You see I ditched the hotel I told you about here. Can you believe it? After all that work! Well I did. And here's why:

Airline tickets. Yup.

Because I booked my ticket to Rome for the cost of the taxes ($350), I had to be a bit more flexible with my dates. And so I arrived in Rome a day before my reservation at the Hotel Mimosa would have begun. But that really didn't matter anyway because I ended up booking the middle eastern trip from Jordan to Egypt during the original dates in Rome. So, it was all a big mess for a few minutes. But don't worry. It was crystal clear in my noggin.

Once I had Jordan and Egypt booked, including airfare to Amman and a night in Amman prior to my tour, I went back to my tenacious Roman hotel search and came up with this beaut: http://www.saturniahotel.com/en/home.php

How do you like them apples? A good two stars better than the previously booked (and proudly one-star) accommodations. And not much more expensive (even taking into account the dollar/euro exchange). I booked two stays with them. One night on arrival in Rome, to get some R&R (and pasta) before heading back to the airport and onward to Asia. The second stay to bookmark the trip and give me some much needed "getting to know you time" with my favorite city on earth. If we're going to be old friends, Roma and I, we must begin somewhere.

The second phone call to Rome today just happened. At three AM. (So I suppose the calls happened on two different days, but I haven't slept yet! I'd be grumpy about it except that it's all for Italia, dahling!)

You see, I had to call the Hotel Saturnia at 11:00am, local time in order to speak with someone who parli l'inglese. You understand? No? Therein lies the whole, comical conundrum.

Virgilio speaks English and works from 11am onward. The fellow I spoke with yesterday spoke only um 'po l'inglese. And seeing as I speak only um 'po l'Italiano, we had ourselves a real pickle past the "How do you do's."
(Buon giorno!/Buona Sera!)

When finally I spoke English with Virgilio (despite how desperately I wish I could speak fluent Italian!), he was perfectly lovely fellow, quite amused by my "Americanisms," and he easily confirmed my reservation in his musically accented English.  Zip, zip. 12 hours of waiting. Question answered in under two minutes. Done and done.

When I exclaimed to him"Perfecto!," he chuckled and said to me, (to emphasize that two could play at the game of attempting to speak each others' languages, except that he actually can speak mine)"Okey Dokey." But it sounded more like this: Ohkeeee D'ohkee. And then I chuckled.

I suppose it's only apposite.