Tourist is a verb, now

Yesterday’s walking tour began close to the Spanish Steps, walked down to the Trevi Fountain, through the Pantheon and ended up at the Piazza Navona, having walked us past countless churches and other amazing buildings.  We even grabbed a photo of Jeff and Reema in front of what is Italy’s version of the Supreme Court.  Hey- he’s in law school, we had to photograph him there.  

When we got back to the hotel, it was time for a mid-day nap.  Occasionally, when you are living your life as though tourist is a verb and you are trying to tourist too hard, you need a nap.  After nap time, we headed to the lobby and finished our evaluations of the tour.  The company we used to go all of these places and see all of these things would like our feedback.  I should just send them a link to this blog.  I think it paints a more vivid picture than any multiple choice questionnaire could convey.  Maybe that’s my bias talking.  We had to be there anyhow to meet our group again and head to the cooking class.  We have done cooking classes on other tours.  We tried (and failed) to learn to make moussaka in Greece.  We learned to make Valencian paella in Spain (and stole the recipe!), and now, we have an idea of how to make some great Roman pasta.  We can certainly make the noodles, at least.  They gave us no indication of how the sauce is put together.  Alas, we will have to come back someday.  

When we got back to the hotel and had a drink in the lobby bar with our friends Jon and Nicci, they invited our substitute tour director Giuseppe to join us.  He sat with us and had a Campari spritz, which is a very Italian thing to drink, though I find them a little bitter.  Though we liked Misia a lot, Giuseppe is a very engaging personality.  He is with the folks who extended the tour for three optional activities, all of which we booked and two of them were yesterday.  

Also, while we were in the hotel lobby, Jeff and Reema walked in from their fancy dinner date.  Reema brought some very nice dressy clothes and Jeff cleaned up pretty well to make for a good looking couple and a nice night out.  I hope they had as much fun as we had in the cooking class, because the cooking class was a bunch of fun.  

That leads us to today, and our last optional activity.  We head to St. Paul’s Basilica and the Catacombs.  That’s it for tourist-ing. We have a farewell drink this evening, and the four of us leave the hotel at three in the morning (I know!  It is way too early!) for the airport and a flight to Paris on the way to Dallas.  

It’s breakfast time, then we head to the catacombs.  See you back in Il Stati Uniti.  (Tomorrow!)

As always, we have updates to the photo album here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/PR6jn1ZzhDS6cx8q8