Oh my goodness -- we actually got to have the entire DAY to ourselves for once! Unbelievable!
Our morning started at 9AM again, where we had a short excursion to an outdoor food market where we met our guide, who was this adorable little old lady who kept saying "yoohoo" to get our attention and humming and singing whenever she wasn't speaking--honestly just the cutest lady ever. I loved her. But anyway, the market. It was nice, the usual market with your fresh seafood and fresh meat and fresh fruit, but obviously we weren't about to buy anything. Then she took us on a walk across the Rialto bridge and then stopped at a courtyard outside one of the houses where Marco Polo actually lived. Again, I must admit, I don't remember what she spoke about. It was cold. I was tired. I just remembered she was adorable. It was also, overall, a very short tour anyway because it ended at around 10:30.
After that our travel director picked us up so that he could guide people back to the hotel if they wanted to return there--we followed after him because we were a) freezing and b) wanted to find a nice restaurant to go for lunch. On our way back, our travel director--being a nice guy--probably realised how bloody cold we all were and showed us to a cafe and bought everyone either gelato (which was super delicious) or hot chocolate (which was also delicious, but that gelato man). So we stopped there for a bit to warm up, and then began making our slow walk back to the hotel. Along the way we saw an Alessi store that my mom vowed to go back too. My mom was also dying to buy a pair of leg-warmers too apparently, but alas, we were too cold and instead opted to rush home instead and rush we did.
We stayed at the hotel, me reading, my sister napping, and decided to leave at 1:30 for lunch. 1:30 rolled around and lo and behold... it was raining. My sister led us to one restaurant that wasn't open (darn) and then to a couple other ones, and eventually we hit upon a restaurant at about 2:30 but we had to stand at the entrance waiting to be seated for ages. They had told us it would take 5min, it took at least 15min. Italians. They really do operate on their own time.
Finally we were seated and none of us wanted to eat anything too large because we were having a farewell dinner with the tour group at 6PM tonight and so we all just got various different pastas. I got clam pasta again, this time with tomato sauce, because I just love clams and pasta. It was alright. Not bad, not spectacular. Then we stepped out and decided to walk back to the hotel because it was still raining (at this point I would say it was close to pouring), but we had to make a couple of stops along the way because my mom really was desperate for those socks. She found them eventually and so off we were back to the hotel... except we got a bit lost because my sister wanted to walk another route and... got lost. And during that extended periods my pants and left foot got soaked just because there was so many puddles everywhere. My jacket got soaked too actually, but I'm from Montreal and I came prepared with my winter jacket so that was no big deal. I should mention that throughout the trip I had been wearing a much thinner nike wind breaker, but when I realized it was raining I quickly ran back upstairs to get my winter jacket because I really like being warm and that thing was guaranteed to keep me warm.
We made it back to the hotel and had another 1.5hrs to rest and then it was time for dinner. We looked outside and it was sleeting. Oh god. Thankfully the restaurant we ate at was diagonally to the left of our hotel, so a very short walk.
At this restaurant we actually got to pick from a menu and I picked caprese salad (other option was shrimp... something), spaghetti with meat (two other options, forgot what), and sea bream with potatoes (two other options) and ice cream for dessert (other option was tiramisu or a fruit bowl). Getting the spaghetti was a huge mistake because my sister got another type of pasta which was nice and small and definitely eatable, but my plate of spaghetti was like... a full gigantic plate of spaghetti. It was ridiculous. I opted to barely touch it in favour of finishing my sea bream though. My entire family got the fish actually--none of us wanted to take a chance at eating actual red meat. The ice cream, again, was delicious. Before the meal we also each got a glass of bellini, and after the meal we all got a glass of limoncello. I finished both my glasses, but my parents passed on the limoncello and my brother ended up drinking three and became ridiculously red and very drunk (although, like a stubborn man, he insists that he never gets drunks *rolls eyes*).
This was it. The end to our fun and amazing (but super tiring and exhausting) tour of Italy.
After that, we returned quickly to the hotel and for some reason my laptop nor my phone wanted to connect to the internet so I decided to retire for an early night.
No comments:
Post a Comment