Dov'e il Aria Condizionata? (or, Where is the Air Conditioning?)

As it turns out, nowhere. The best part of my day was when I accidentally spilled cold water on my leg. It's so hot here it's suffocating. It feels like I'm walking through jello. Jello that's been in the oven. Emily and I woke up at 5:30, and decided to be proactive and get to know the area by taking a walk. During which we discovered stores don't open until 10am. Which is fine, because we still racked up a few steps on fitbit. After breakfast, we decided to walk to the puppet museum before our tour guide arrived at the hotel to take us around town. We left at 10 for the musuem, which should have given us plenty of time before our tour at 1, right? Wrong. When we told our tour guide later that we had walked to the puppet museum, she said, "well, that's not really a walk." Which we had just found out. We got lost on the way there (during which we asked a passerby where the "Musee de Marionette" was. He didn't understand us, probably because he didn't speak French). We finally stumbled upon the museum after almost an hour of walking in the blazing heat. But the museum, despite housing interesting puppets, was not air conditioned, so we left as soon as we could. We spent the next hour wandering around, looking for a taxi. Which, apparently, don't drive around the streets but sit in a taxi yard, waiting for people to come to them. We went through about four or five waters during that walk, counting the one I spilled (which felt extremely cold and nice). But in our greatest hour of despair, we stumbled upon the taxi yard. The car was not air conditioned, but was still cooler than outside. Unfortunately, by the time we got back to the hotel, it was already 1 (excuse me, 13:00) and time for our tour. So we had to delay it by an hour to have time for naps (this family knows its priorities). Even more unfortunately, our hotel is not air conditioned. (Are you seeing a theme?) The actual tour was really interesting. We visited a crypt, and stayed much longer than is normally acceptable, but was excuseable because it was so cool down there, and so hot upstairs in the cathedral. To cap it off, McKayla Maroney (WARNING: OLYMPICS SPOILERS)defied everyone's expectations and got silver on vault, and neither Gabby Douglas or Jordyn Weiber placed on bars, beam, or floor. On a brighter note, most shops are air conditioned. It looks like we'll be doing a lot of shopping in the days ahead. Love, Sarah