20. My New Address: 123 Best Place Ever, Rome, Italy

Right, well, today was pretty much the best of the trip so far! 

There are going to be a lot of pictures in this one, because I covered off two of the biggest things I wanted to see, literally and figuratively (and a bunch of other great stuff too!)

The Colosseum and the Pantheon!

I woke up with more sniffles than I'm comfortable with, but what, am I going to sit inside because I was sniffly? Hell to the no!

I ate some homemade jam from the husband of the woman who I'm staying with on some melba toast, had an apple, and headed out on my way. I walked to the Colosseum, it took about 25 minutes, in wonderful weather. It's the actual exact opposite of Berlin in terms of joy-making weather!

I got to the Colosseum after fighting through a ton of people, obviously, and it was insane. Absolutely gigantic, and stunning, and unreal, and... I just remember learning about it in Mrs. Thompson's grade ten art class, and now I was standing in front of it. How? How does the world work this way? I mean that both in that how the hell did I get here, and also how on earth did people build this thing? It's insane! Proof here:

I obviously went to the giftshop after, and wanted to get something to remember the visit by. They had these awesome bronze sculpture of a gladiator riding an old Roman cart with four horses up front. It was... not cheap. I didn't buy it, but it's still floating around in the back of my head. Instead, for now, I bought these lovely bags!

After standing around the Colosseum for a while longer because it hurt my heart to walk away, I took the bus up to the area that the Pantheon is in. I was walking and walking, thinking there would be some cleared space for it, because it so huge. There wasn't, it's just tucked in the damn city streets! It's insane! It's amazing! Here it is!

It's prestine, clearly been cleaned up and restored, and I sat in there for a while just taking it in. 

From there I walked along a few little adorable streets, and saw some ice cream... followed very quickly by I ate some ice cream. Specifically white chocolate orange, and hazelnut. Come onnnnnnn! 

While I walked with the best ice cream in all of the land, I saw a woman selling very cool jewelry. I bought this piece that she made this morning out of old metal plates from Rome! She was lovely, and adjusted the length for me as I waited.

After that! I walked a bit more on my way to the island, and I came across an amazing shop called Pinocchio. In the doorway was a man carving wood by hand, and so I went in. I found the most wonderful carved Pinocchio in a wood stump, and it even smells like fresh cut wood!

This is the beautifully designed bag it was packed in.

You guys..... look at that face!

I'd looked at a map earlier in the day, and saw that there was a little island with some stuff on it. I decided to walk to it! I didn't know what was on it, if they would let me on it (seemed super tiny and fancy), but sure enough, they did. 

There was a white building that was clearly a church of some sort, and I saw a warm light from inside. I decide to go in, and as I did, a couple that I met at the airport waiting to fly out of Berlin tapped me on the shoulder and said hi. They're quite lovely, and they're German, though I can't remember from which city, but it wasn't Berlin. They suggested that we grab some tea, so I said I'd meet them up the street after I did my look at the inside of the church. 

This place is breathtaking.

We had a great hour-long chat over tea, sitting at a quaint little bistro on a cobblestone street right around the corner from that church. They were kind enough to buy me some hand-pressed juice instead of tea (I'd never sleep again if I had caffeine that late) and then we parted ways. I don't know their names, they don't know mine, but we spent a conversation-filled hour together, and it's kind of extremely refreshing.

From there I decided to walk home. It was a bold move, as it was dark and I had no idea where I was, but Google lead the way. I made it home about 35 minutes later, dogs a'barkin', and ready to eat something delicious for dinner. I stopped and picked up some fruit and water and two hilarious tiny bags of chips.

I took that stuff and my purchases from the day up to the apartment, and then headed out to dinner. To where, I did not know. There's a fancy place right by the apartment that looked super, so I went there. I then found out that all they serve is fish! Kinda cool, so I stayed.

I had a three-little-course thing, and I essentially asked the guy / owner to give me what was the most delicious!

The left is cooked greens of some sort, and tiny shrimp. The middle is I literally have no idea but it had tentacles and was quite dense, and pretty delicious. The right is calamari with a different kind of cooked greens. I'm not usually a fan of cooked greens (I have this weird dislike of soggy vegetables), but this is all new territory, so I'm trying new things. It was pretty delicious!

The woman there told me that their tiramisu is delicious, and while, like the greens, I don't like tiramisu, I said yes! 

It was sooooooo good! Maybe Italian tiramisu is extremely different than the Canadian one? It tasted like nothing close to any other version I've had or made (made it once after a class I took at Horhay Brown), and I want to mail this delicious one home for people to try!

This is the one I made years ago. Cake on the outside and mush and soaked delicious on the inside. Nowhere near as good as the one above!

And that's the end of today! As I sat at dinner I had a lightbulb moment reminding me that I have a Rome cooking day that I signed up for tomorrow! Thank goodness I remember because it starts across town at 9am! 

That's my cue to shut this baby down and get to sleep! Night everyone, and see you tomorrow, with a wee bit more cooking knowledge to share!