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It all started about 10 years ago, when she had finished college and decided to go on a trip around the world. To be able to pay that, she got a job at a local pub, and after about a year she had made enough to start her trip. It probably wouldn't get her everywhere she wanted to go, but she didn't want to wait any longer, and she could always try and make some more money on her trip.
She left London by plain and first went to Rome. She had never been there before, and it seemed a good place to start. She had always been interested in ancient culture, and which place would be better to start here trip than the birthplace of Western civilisation. Before she had left London, she had booked a little hotel a few kilometres out of the centre of Rome, so she would have a nice and quiet place to stay for a few weeks, or for as long as the city could keep here interested.
When Ellie arrived in Rome, the weather was hot. She had counted on that, and had dressed light, so she wouldn't be bothered to much by the heath. After she had collected her bags, she left the airport and went to look for a bus that would take her to her destination, or at least as close as possible, since she didn't want to carry her bags all over the city. She didn't want to spend too much money on a cab, so public transport seemed the best solution. Luckily for her, she had been studying a bit of Italian so it wasn't too hard to find the right bus. After about half an hour, the bus had reached her destination. She got of and after a five minute walk she saw her hotel.
When she got there, there was a nice girl at the reception. When she saw all her bags, she called someone to take them up to Ellie's room. She really appreciated that, since she had a lot of bags, and there wasn't an elevator to tak eher to the second floor. She went ahead to her room, with her little handbag, to freshen up a bit. After about 5 minutes, she heard a knock on her door. She opened it, with her hair still wet, and at first all she saw were here bags piled up. Then she noticed someone was standing behind them. She started to pull her bags in the room, and searched for her wallet to give the man a tip. Then, for the first time she had a good look at who brought her bags up to the room. It turned out to be a guy that was just a few years older than her. He was quite good looking. Unfortunately he didn't speak much English, so she couldn't start a conversation, not with the little Italian that she knew. So he just took the tip, said 'thank you', with his lovely Italian accent, and left.
Ellie made a promise to herself that she would definitley try and learn a bit more Italian, so she could at least have a bit of a conversation with that guy, if she saw him again. Since he was working at the hotel, and she would be staying there for a while, that shouldn't be a problem. She hadn't really made plans for that day, yet, so she decided to just go out and discover a bit of Rome. She asked the girl at the reception if she could show her the shortest way to the centre of the city. She got out a map and drew the way she had to go. She stepped outside, put on her sunglasses and started walking.
After about twenty minutes she had reached her first destination, the Collosseum. Starting from there, it wouldn't be too hard to find all the things she wanted to visit, since all of the touristic attraction were clearly marked on her map. She was getting a bit thursty, though, so she decided to get something to drink first. She bought a bottle of water, and started walking through the city. Soon it was three hours later, and she had passed most of the things she wanted to pay a closer visit to. That would have to happen the next few days, since the sun was started to disappear and it was time to go back to the hotel.
Ellie was a bit late when she arrived back at the hotel, but luckily the kitchen hadn't closed yet. An advantage of visiting a country were people have their supper at a later time. Most of the other guests had already had their dinner, so it was rather quiet in the restaurant. As far as she could see, there was one other couple having dinner. After a while she noticed someone sitting in the far corner of the room. When she looked a bit closer, she saw it was the guy that had brought her bags up to her room. He seemed to be a bit lonely, playing with his food. While she was looking at him, he suddenly looked back. She just smiled at him, and to her surprise he smiled back. He, however, didn't get up to come to her table, like she had hoped. But not to worry, she would be there for a while, so she knew she would probably get a chance to get to know him a bit better one of those days.
She finished her dinner and went back to her room. While she had been wondering around the city earlier on, she had bought some postcards, to send to the friends she had left at home. she had promised her best friend to send her a card every week, so she had decided to start with it straight away. She didn't have much to tell yet, but that didn't mean she couldn't fill a postcard with some kind of irrelevant message, just so her friend would know she had arrived safely. She had decided not to call home, except when there was some kind of emergency, since calls where quite expensive, and she wasn't much of a talker herself. She was much better at writing down her feelings, than she was at talking about them.
she had thought about the cards while she was out, but she had forgotten to get some stamps as well. She wanted to post the card first thing in the morning, so she went down to the reception to see if she could get some stamps there. The girl that had helped her earlier wasn't there, but the 'luggage guy' was. He didn't understand too much English, though, so he couldn't help her. He just told her to wait. A few minutes later, the girl appeared. She apologized for her brother, and said he was just helping out there during the holidays, and he was still very unsure about his English. She said he did understand most of it, but speaking it was another matter. They talk about it for a little while, and after that Ellie went back to her room, with the stamps she had wanted. From what the girl had told her about her brother, he seemed very interesting. Ellie was starting to get a bit intrigued by him.