Vieni a Casa Rolex

I can't believe I have neglected to post anything for the past week! This has been (and most likely will remain) the busiest week of my time in Rome. I had private tours on Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, and today. I had Wednesday and Thursday off from the private tours, but I did all the public tours on Wednesday (not that anyone actually showed up...) On top of this busy work schedule, we welcomed 3 separate houseguests to the Casa Rolex. Roisin and I bestowed this name upon our appartamento after exploring possible combinations of our name one night at dinner. "Rolex" was the eventual winner, beating out "Alesin," or Roisin's inspired suggestion, "Alexroisin."

The first guest was Ro's brother Kevin, who had a few days off from work and decided to come see his sister and visit Rome for the first time. I still haven't gotten over the ease with which so many Europeans decide to journey to the Eternal City. For me, it involves a full day of travel and a trans-Atlantic flight, but as I have been reminded a number of times, it is only a 3 hour flight from Dublin... If I thought I had a hard time understanding Roisin, it was nothing to the blank stare I was typically forced to use as a response to Kevin's conversation. I think I understood maybe 78% of what he said the entire time. Still, from what I could understand, he seemed like a nice guy, and Ro dragged him all over the city to see the sites.

Our second guest was Dara, who stayed at Casa Rolex free of charge, because he let me live in his apartment for free back in June, and because we love having guests. He was here to check on the company and to train me on some more tours for private tours I will have to give next week. Our third guest was Ro's friend Aoife, who came to see Rome and Roisin, and the two of them went to Florence as well. Add into this mix Daire, who I can't remember if I have mentioned, but who is another Irish girl who is friends with Dara and Ro. She lives out in Ostia in the summers, and we stayed at her place last weekend when we went to the beach. Altogether, on top of the tours, we have been trying to do fun things in and around the city, including exploring Faber Beach, a beach in Ostia where you can go sit around little fire pits when it gets dark and look at the stars, after swimming in the sea all day. We of course didn't get to do much swimming, but we did all sit around a fire pit and wish we had supplies for s'mores.

Now all our guests are gone, so I am left with the exciting task of cleaning the apartment...