Vacations That Change Your Life: Day 8

Friday: To be honest, this was a rather short day. I think we finally were all up and ready to go out by 1p? Unfortunately, while it is pretty, Verona is a very small town so it's one of those "literally NOTHING is open to serve food except at designated times" kind of towns. We ended up having to kill time in the hotel lobby while we waited for an option for lunch. I utilized the coffee bar once again and then we played the brand-spanking-new Wii system. It was just the five of us down stairs (Rosie stayed in all day today) so it was kind of nice. A very relaxing change of pace...

Cappuccino :)

Allie playing tennis

We finally found a place that was still doing lunch so we went with it. I had an orange juice and a bowl of pesto pasta. That came with bread.... it was a surprisingly excellent lunch. Although, my heart was a little crushed when I went to order dessert the guy at the counter said he was out of crêpes. :(

We sat here until the bus we needed to get to downtown came around. We were on our way to see the only thing left of interest to us: "Casa di Giulietta" (Juliet's House). This is the unofficial site of Shakespeare's inspiration for "Romeo & Juliet." It's unofficial because Shakespeare had never actually been to Italy. But we and thousands of others were content to pretend it was and add our names to the well-graffitied wall that leads to the infamous courtyard! On our way to the site, we walked through a big open-air market that was selling beautiful Mardi Gras masques, glassware from the famous Murano glass, and dried fruits. I bought a bag of dried pineapple to bring back to my host family (which almost didn't make it because it was the most tantalizingly sweet and soft pineapple I've ever had), a pair of really pretty Murano glass earrings for Christine (to thank her for putting up with all of the insanity that was my departure), and a pretty masque for myself. 

Verona

This place has become something of a pilgrimage site for lovers the world-over

Me in front of the wall!

"Romeo, Romeo, where for art thou, Romeo?"

Well, we had seen it. The only thing we really cared to see anymore besides the Grand Canal in Venice. So what did we do next? Duh! Our last dinner in Italy! For whatever reason, Chantalle and Selene were "sick" of the Italian food so they went to have sushi. This is still floating above my head; perhaps someone can explain it to me? Anyways, Joe, Allie, and I were going to celebrate our last meal in Italy by having the best Italian food we could find- and we were going big because we were really going home! I was absolutely prepared to splurge tonight and I was so excited to do so too. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my other favorite meal from my trip in Italy: white wine, four cheese pasta, and ham, mushroom, artichoke pizza from Naples, Italy. Enjoy!

Our lovely table

My four cheese pasta which was literally noodles and four ooey, gooey, melty cheeses. No cream, no nothing extra. There were even chunks of blue cheese floating around in there. OMG

My pizza. And I kid you not, this was THE BEST PIZZA I HAVE EVER EATEN!

But I couldn't finish it!!! XD (Not to worry, I took the rest in a box to have tomorrow)

I was one happy girl after this meal :)

All we had left to do was enjoy the food coma and get ourselves back to the hostel. I don't think I have ever eaten so much in my life! I was literally uncomfortable as we walked to our meeting spot with Chantalle and Selene. Like the skin on my stomach hurt because it was stretching! But I guess that's the way it should be after your last meal in Italy.

So, we made it to our rendez-vous point and of course, the girls weren't there. We started walking towards were they said they were eating but we didn't see the restaurant and turned back. Eventually they came walking out and rather than getting irritated, we just brushed it off so we could figure out what we were going to do to get out of the cold. 

There is something about this picture that is very amusing to me.

We figured out that we needed to take a taxi again. We also had to split up because they can only take up to 4 people at one time. When we made it back, it was around 11p. Each one of us still needed to take a shower, re-pack our bags, do online check in for our flight, and we needed to print our boarding passes. Our flight the next day was at 10:30a from Venice to Barcelona (where we planned to train back to Pau). This means that we had to check out, take a taxi to the train station, take a train to Venice, and go through airport check in before then. So the plan was horrifying: get up and be downstairs for check out at 3:30a. :( Needless to say, when I was done showering, packing my bag, and printing our boarding passes downstairs with Joe and the front desk guy, I only got about 2 hours of sleep. Cue the exhaustion!