What a long amazing day

Buona sera! (good evening) Today was filled with many activities. I woke up at 5:30am for some reason and was wide awake. I went on my ipod and noticed Tarin's boyfriend Dave was online so we chatted a bit and then Tarin woke up so I let her talk to him. I took a lovely hot shower and got ready. Then all of us girls headed to the tabbachi (store where you can buy coffee, croissants, donuts, gelato, candy, cigarettes, etc) and got coffee. I got a caffe macchiato and it comes in a tiny little cup and is very strong but delicious. The guy at the bar kept telling us to "pay after" but apparently he meant to pay before so we finally figured it out and you pay for what you want then show the receipt and they make it for you. We then embarked on our first attempt to walk to ACCENT instead of bussing it. It was 2 miles and took about 40 minutes. I think I will take the bus a lot because the walk it not easy. The roads and sidewalks are paved with stones and they are uneven and very hard on your feet. We all have massive blisters now.

We continued past ACCENT to the Pantheon. The Pantheon was built in 126 AD and is amazing. It is remarkable how they built these buildings with the modern technology we have. Inside is the painter Raphael's coffin, a few other tombs, paintings, and altars. The ceiling has a round hole in the center and at summer solstice it shines directly in the center of the flooring. There are many photos of it on facebook from Tarin and I if you want to see! Outside of the Pantheon is a McDonalds...kind of ridiculous if you ask me! We sat outside by the fountain and ate sandwiches we made. Mine was fresh mozzarella, salami, prosciutto, tomatoes, and mayo.

Then we headed back to ACCENT to meet with the other kids who wanted to go to the Colosseum, Forum, and Palentine. One of the staff members at ACCENT gave us a tip to wait in line at the Forum for tickets instead of the Colosseum. Since we did that we only had to wait like 30 min in line instead of an hour or longer. Gotta love those insider tips! We then were able to walk around all three places freely without any more lines.

After that, we walked part way back to ACCENT and found a little restaurant called Pizzeria Ristorante Imperiale and 7 of us ate there. Most of the time the group splits up because it's too hard to keep 19 people together. Kate and I ordered bruschetta to share, pesto, and seafood linguine carbonara. The food was amazing. The carbonara had mussels and oysters that were delicious. It worked out to be around 11 euro for my portion which is pretty good compared to Olive Garden, hahaha. We then walked the rest of the way to ACCENT with a slight detour to a gelateria. I got tiramisu and crema fiorentina flavors, YUM! By this time it was just Tarin, Marisa, Lisa, and I left and we hopped on the 46 bus that took us a block from our house. It was a much needed break for our feet because we had walked over 8 miles over the entire day. When I got home I literally set my purse and camera down and went to sleep immediately. I slept for 3 hours and so now I am wide awake. I just warmed up some of the pasta we made last night and it was so good. We didn't really think about how to warm stuff up without a microwave. I just tossed it in a pan and fried it up for a few minutes. We also have to make toast in the oven because we have no toaster!

Right now I am sitting in the living room drinking some naranja rosso (blood orange juice). It is sooooo good! I've heard of a blood orange but have never had one or tasted the juice before. Tomorrow we decided to take it easy and sleep in. We might go to the shopping district and the Campo de Fiori which is a huge market with food, clothes, trinkets, etc. My fingers hurt from typing and adding all those photos so I am going to go soak my tired feet and maybe do some reading. We are trying to plan a trip to the island of Capri. Buona notte! (good night)