Do not read this first- there are three new posts other than this one below!! Tuesday night through Wednesday evening

Ciao. I am writing this from the Rome Airport Marriott hotel, which is nice and Americanized.

We went to dinner at a seafood restaurant in Salerno that overlooked the ocean. I had...you'll never guess!...margherita pizza (it's so good and hard for people to mess up!), Mom had rock lobster linguine, Nana had a seafood pizza (it grossed me out with all of the tentacles), and Papa had sea bass. For dessert we had torta caprese (a chocolate almond cake), gelato, and perella (a thick custardy dish made with goat cheese).

We walked around downtown for a while, because we finally found the REAL shopping district. Everything was closing, though, so then we just went to bed.

Mom got up this morning and exercised while I exercised my right to sleep more. Then we went to breakfast, which was still yummy even though the nectarine I had was so hard that when I tried to cut it a piece flew across the room and almost hit the employee offering espressos.

Mom and I then headed to the beach for forty-five minutes of sun intake. It was only slightly marred by this really creepy beachgoer who would walk up and down the beach in front of us and run his hand over his chest whenever I accidentally looked his direction.

We showered and packed up, then took off toward Rome. There was a little bit of more bad rain, but mostly just sprinkling. However, at one point on the drive, lightning struck less than one hundred feet away from our car. We all made strangled gasping noises and leaned to the opposite side of the car before bursting into nervous laughter.

It took us five hundred years to find the Marriott, but we eventually did. It was a good thing, too, because any longer and I am afraid that my bladder would have burst. Mom and I threw on our suits and sunned ourselves out by the pool some more while Nana and Papa took the car back to the rental at the airport. We're going to take the hotel shuttle there in the morning. I hardly spent any money while I was here. :( I feel gypped.

Dinner was at the hotel. I had baked potato and a salad. But these people gave me JoJos!!! I didn't want JoJos; I wanted a real, fat baked potato. And then they didn't have sour cream. Or plain yogurt. So I ate my JOJOs with oil, vinegar, cheeses, salt, and pepper. Hmmph. Mom had zucchini pasta, Nana had seafood salad and a steak in truffle sauce, and Papa had chicken scallopini.

Desert was tiramisu, gelato, and cheesecake that was nowhere good enough or big enough to cost nine euro. But hey. Not every restaurant can have New York style cheesecake. :)

We leave the hotel tomorrow around eight, so this is the last Italian post. Sorry these all came so late; we just didn't have internet. See you all soon!

-Julia