Umbria la la la

Sta mattina sono partita Spoleto per Perugia in treno e ho preso l'autobus per Piazza Italia nel centro historico. Part of me was sad to leave Spoleto - even though I didn't get a room with a view, I still got a nice room. I was lucky to reach the stazione at 9.50am on the free bus ride (I've learnt to get away with not buying a biglietto, ok shoot me) and found there was a treno to Perugia at 9.55am! And at Perugia, I found Hotel Eden easily where I got the last single room for 45E! What luck! Fortunatamente! Yipeeee!

I hugged myself in joy and ran out to see Perugia - there was a good buzz along Corso Vannucci, sicuramente piu vivace di Spoleto. It was a good mix of a modern citta and ancient town. The Frommer guidebook was very useful and in an hour, I had explored most of the city centre. My stomach was growling even though I had no appetito. Merda. I was dreading lunch perche I had to mangiare pasta o pizza!!! Arrrghhh!!!! There were too many pizzeria here, maybe to support the thriving student community. The recommended Da Cesarino ristorante seemed too turistico so I picked the nearby corner Tavern La Gabbia where I chowed down the tagiatelle al porcini (7E) and a bicchiere di vino rosso (2E) - non è male (not bad) but a bowl of chinese soup would be my saviour.

I took a nap for the first time on the trip and left the MTV on till 7pm when I had to get some fresh air. No hunger still so I walked around aimlessly and ran into the English couple (from Spoleto) whom recognised me and we had a good 10-min chat! I always seemed to meet nice retired English couples. Tired, I nursed a birra Peroni (it's actually better than Moretti) and wished for a sigaretta but went to a hotdog shop to 'tah bao' one for the night.

Just when I was nibbling it on the way back, a bookish bespectacled man with flyaway floppy hair came alongside, smiled and said 'Buon Appetito' and I said 'Grazie'.
H: 'Buono?'
Me: 'è cosi-cosi'
H: 'Di dove sei?'
Me: 'Sono di S'pore. Lei sa dove?' (I love to test them on their geography)
H: 'Si, è vicino Indonesia'
Me: 'Bravo!'
H: 'Sono italiano' (I rolled my eyes and we introduced ourselves.)
H: 'Che fai?'
Me: 'Io?' (I wanted to shoot myself for sounding stupida - who self was he asking then!) 'Sono in pubbliche relazioni'
H: 'Hai fidanzato?' (Hahaha, they always ask this question)

Anyway in just 5 mins walking to my hotel, he asked me if I want to have dinner tomorrow. I looked at him for one sec and based on my well-honed sleaze-radar, he seemed to score quite low on the scale. And let's put it this way, if a serial rapist came to chat me up, I'd have bought him a 3-course dinner - with vino too. Si, I wanted company that badly. We agreed to meet at 7.30pm domani.