we woke up this morning early. i did not sleep well, probably because we did not walk anywhere yesterday ... Les had a good night, snored away .... So, he woke me up at 7 and we got ready and at 8 were out the door. The plan was to meet at 9 at Piazza Cavour in front of the cinema. We arrived on time, went to a small cafe and had our usual capuccho for me and americano for Les. We also had 2 marmelada cornettos. It is a pastry like a croissant and filled with apple and cinnamon and soooo soooo melt in your mouth delicious. Then we went to the end of the street and no one was there. my thoughts...oh oh ... we have come to the wrong spot. Which is impossible since yesterday we caved in and got ourselves a GPS (TomTom). i was thoroughly fed up with being blamed for wrong turns and getting off the right track. so over it. so overrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr ittttttttttttttt. Tomtom is here to save the day but my thought is ..... Ale is not here and we must have come to the wrong spot !!! Les is mad cause he thinks i am saying he didnt put the right information in....i am convinced the tomtom misunderstood the location. and the whole time we are in the right spot.......when i got back to the hotel today and checked missed messages, there was one from them saying that they (alessandra and some friends) had gotten lost !!! ha ha ha !!! i can laugh now but, at the time, i was worried we were wrong...
after 5 min, Ale jumps out of her super duper Beemer, we all hug, we meet her best friend Andrea and we decide to have another coffee and another cornetto. they park. we go into the same cafe. 15 min later we are all in her car and headed for exploration. i had sent her my wish list quite a while ago and she prepared a whole itinerary based on it !!! first stop: Porta Portese flea market which neither of them have ever been to. it was jam packed full of things to buy and spend money we did !!! it was intense because we were worried about pickpockets and i took a fanny pack with camera and ipod and no money. Les emptied his wallet partly at home and it only had money. the credit cards stayed at the hotel and the biz cards we put in the glove compartment of our car.... Ale drove and we had our human GPS - Andrea !! he did great. he works in Rome and really does know the streets like the back of his hand ...... I think we spent all morning browsing and shopping. I got a ring for myself and one for Ana Banana. We got slippers for Les. We got 2 Tshirts of the type I LOVE ROMA each. I got 3 necklaces - silver and inexpensive and fun to wear. I also got a knock off Fendi purse which I love to pieces. it was fun fun fun and crowded and safe. saw absolutely no pickpocket incidents at all. (knockoffs: lesson learned - as soon as I used it for the first time, one of the hinges broke off. les has "fixed" it but it is not the same)
from there we went to the colosseum. it is an absolutely huge building. site of major death with thousand of people and animals killed. the rich and famous were at the bottom and close to the action. the poor higher up. the slaves and women at the top !! walked and walked and it got hotter and hotter. turns out today was a red flag day (in other words HOT). It reached over 100 - about 40 celsius. trust me on this one. it was too hot. a friend from college met us after the colloseum - Laura. she is nice and was so well dressed. reminded me of a brazilian !! we were hungry and we went for lunch. les and i had mushroom bolognese spaghetti, andrea had a cold pasta fresca which looked very good and the girls had salads. we should have ordered salads. it was really too hot for hot food. but when we think of lunch, we think of hot food !! and also, we are trying to taste all different types of typical dishes.....
from there we went to Piazza di Spagna - i had seen an italian mini series when w e were stilll in Mexico, based there and it was neat to see it live. Then we went to Pantheon. Building erected tot he Gods and the onnly source of light is one opening in the ceiling. a feat. until 1960, it was the largest dome. put that in your funk and wagnal. from there we saw Fontana di Trevi and threw in a coin. From there we went for ice cream. les had told me the italians are famous for their ice cream. it is more like sherbert but it is ice cream and it is very very very delicious.
after all this we walked back to the car. they took us back to our car. goodbye and we drove to our hotel here in Pemezia with a stopover to buy beer and had some ice cream again !!! and bought some focaccia and pizza to take back to the hotel for dinner.
as we were parking the car, we went too far forward and the front got stuck on the sidewalk. have to hit the body shop tomorrow, the whole front came loose. terrible.
it is Juliets birthday, so we gave her a call. she was probably sleeping and did not answer.
Mom was met in Geneva by my student Elodie and is safely on her way to Lausanne to meet up with Denise and relax for a couple days before she meet us in Venice ! elodie commented on how nice Mom is, but we knew that already !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! my mom is one of the nicest smartest kindest honest people i know and i am lucky to have her to serve as an example. i sure dont know how chris and maureen and dalton and i came out so different from her !!!! she can hold her tongue and none of us can. she says it comes with age. bring on the age then !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i sure could use some holding of the tongue .....
bonna notte to all. i cannot speak italian as good as i could before i came here. absurd but true. i am simply toooo tired to make it work correctly. i spit it out ma Madonna !!! it should be better !!!
Blanca, I do agree with your description of your Mom! She's really a one in a million and I am soooooo happy to have her as my friend! Well, I feel more and more excited, each day, with your travelling experience! Thanks for sharing it with us! Have a great time, you and Les! Ciao, Bambina!!!
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