Paulus Family: Food and more food...

Well we have had two very big suppers the last nights that I must tell you about.
On Wed night Jim and Roger made friends with Alec, a server at one of the local restaurants in Florence. We ended up eating there for three hours...and the food was delicious! Alec was quite the entertainer! During one point of the night Jim and him came up with a idea to prank Roger...so when it was time to pay the bill Jim said he forgot his credit card at the hotel and asked roger if he could pay. The bill came for $600 Euros...and roger almost fell over! Little did he know that Alec and Jim had staged the whole thing! It was pretty funny...but even more funny after the 4 bottles of wine and glasses of Lemon Chello! =
We didn’t think we could top last night, but when we got back to Rome tonight our hotel recommended a place called La Barca. (Rumor has it the pope has eaten there...we are not sure which one though? haha) We got there early around 6:15 and we were the first customers. The server asked if he could handle "ordering for us" and would start us with a appetizer. We said yes..and 3 hours later...15 courses later...We were happy customers. They kept bringing us out course after course. Bread, sheep cheese, fish salad, mussels, tuber and fried squid, oysters, soup, lobster pasta, sorbet, salted sea bass, baked veggies, fresh veggies, a strawberry desert, fresh fruit(every kind that u could imagine), and then of course grappa and lemon chello. Then when we were leaving the restaurant the owner gave each of us ladies a bottle of wine and a flower. It was a very cool meal. Roger said "one of the best he has ever had!!!"

So yes we will all be coming back a little plumpier!I have run 4 times on the trip(which is not a lot since we have been gone 12 days...but definitely will need to kick it in high gear once we get back to be ready for the relay run.

Tomorrow we got to Pompei for the day....thank goodness for all the walking we will be doing!