Such Fine Boys in Rome!

In Rome while we wanted to roam,Our hotel receptionist Slyvia helped us out,As we wanted to take the local transport and not the taxi,At first, she was surprised, later wrote down the information,On a piece of paper clearly, the bus, the metro, the changes,The stations and the distance to walk from there,Later we were so thankful to her as none spoke English,Whom so ever we met on the way, only Italian they spoke,We walked to the bus stop and took the bus to Laurentina,From there a metro we had to take to the Vatican,To see the Vatican City and St Peter’s Basilica inside,As we got into the bus, we looked for tickets to buy,Then we found out that the tickets are not available on the bus,We had to buy them earlier in coffee shops or bars,That’s okay to travel without tickets he said,As you are tourists here and you didn’t know it,Then he rattled off something in Italian,Which we didn’t understand even a bit,Don’t know what made him ask if we knew Hindi,Then we came to know this boy is from Gurdaspur,His name is Gagan and he works as a bartender here,His two cousins were with him, he introduced them to us,Such fine boys from India, who took us all the way to the Vatican,Dropped us there and didn’t want to even share an ice cream with us,As they had had Aloo parathas and were so full, they said,They were so happy we were connected to their place,Our daughter in law’s granddad’s place and our friend Randy’s too,We told them and spoke Hindi with them all the way,They changed stops with us, came in the metro with us,Saw to it we reach the Vatican City without any doubts,He gave his phone number too, in case we require while we get back,To our room by the same route back to Pomezia where we stayed,He called the next day to check if all was fine and any help required,To reach any other place in Rome, he asked,He also said, he knew a little bit of English when he came here,Which he has forgotten now, as all speak only Italian here,Such fine boys, God bless them, due to them our travel became easier,It was so easy the rest of the days when we went out on our own,Walked the local Trastevere streets and ate at Nannarella restaurant,Which our son had suggested and enjoyed the best lasagne and gelato icecream,Our four days in Rome on our own was wisely spent seeing the real local Rome,All due to these fine boys and Slyvia who educated us all about Rome so well !
Copyright@Jacqueline Lobo JohnIndia