When in Rome... don't try to eat dinner before 7:00pm, apparently...

Well hokey doodle (to quote the illustrious Valerie Sherrard) I made it to Rome!

Taken from the window of my shuttle taxi. Sigh. Want the Vespa. But the Colliseum is pretty cool, too.

I swear the lady at the check-in counter pointed me toward gate 178. REALLY! So when they started boarding passengers to  Addis Abiba, sure, it seemed odd. I figured my flight would board right after. Then I noticed the time. Then I noticed the gate number. 171. Then I ran.
I don't run. Ever. So when I got to the far other end of the departure lounge, I was hyperventilating like a panicked, middle-aged, sedentary book-type might. Of course, I was on time. But oh, barely. And the little twerps at Air Canada tried to give me this whole song and dance about how there were about 150, no, 200, no, 300 passengers including crying babies, a hockey team, a school band, and a cat, all brandishing pitchforks, ready to skewer me for holding up the flight. Which I didn't! We left on time. My seatmate didn't even realize that there had been any sort of wait at all. But I think I had odd heart palpitations till we were halfway across the Atlantic.
Oh, and speaking of my seatmate, he was this nice young guy from Pittsburg en route to Zurich to attend a...(wait for it) watch convention. Perfect!

I walked around Rome once I settled into the hotel. The great thing about my hotel is that it's right next to this magnificent cathedral, the Santa Maria Maggiore, and as long as I could see it peeking out above the other buidings, I couldn't get lost. I just wandered around for a while, taking it all in, and tried to find a place to eat. It was about 5:00 and it seems that you can only get dessert and coffee before 7:00. I kept walking into restaurants and cafes looking for pizza (as advertised on the BIG SIGN outside) but the waiters just kept directing me to the pastry counters. What's a girl to do??
When I did finally get a pizza (yum!), I was suddenly struck with self-doubt.
Help me out here, folks:
When in Rome, does one eat pizza with a knife and fork or by hand?