iiiiitaly

You'll all be happy to know that Danielle and I are alive and well and going about our trip.

We left on Saturday, which meant some sad goodbyes to Robin and Kelly and to Amy. There weren't many other people around--Stephanie had left to pick up her mom and grandma, J.J. and Kara were off to Portugal for the weekend and Kristen had left that morning for her trip with her dad.

Danielle and I, still getting used to the weight of the backpacks we'd spent hours carefully arranging and cursing at, staggered into the train station for the 12:20 AVE. We had lunch in Madrid at Canas y Tapas, ordered some delicious morsels and toasted to the start of our trip. After a quick stop at Corte Ingles for Cheetos and apple pop, we got on the Metro for the airport.

We were there plenty early, too early to check in even. Our flight left a little late but arrived on time in Milan, where we were greeted by the pouring rain. We picked up our bags and found the way to our shuttle to take us into the city. Danielle was feeling a cold or something coming on, but if you know Danielle you know she'd never complain.

When we arrived at the train station, where our shuttle dropped us off, we briefly considered facing the rain and trying to find our hotel. But then we thought better of it and got a cab to carry us the short ride. We walked up to the desk and were informed that the hotel had overbooked and were going to have to walk to another hotel down the road. In the rain. Thanks, guys.

But we made it and took the slowest elevator in the world up to the seventh floor, the stairs to the eighth and down the sketchy hallway with some Spanish guys who had also gotten bumped. Not having eaten, we were going to have to go back down again and brave the rain for some dinner. McDonalds to the rescue. It poured on the way there, but had stopped on the way back, so it sort of evened out. And it was delicious. We went to bed right away.

We got up in the morning for our breakfast and got ourselves to the train station. We made our way to the information desk to validate our railpasses. That went smoothly, but thus began the dark, dizzy journey to La Spezia. The lady who validated our passes told us to go downstairs to get a reservation to our train. Fine, we had time. We got our asses in line and waited. When it was our turn they told us our reservation had to be made on the train. Fine, so where do we go? So he told us. We got on the train, scoped out a seat and looked for any official train guy that might be around. No sign of one. Anywhere. A rude employee I found outside the train wouldn't even look at me, and, joy of joys, he turned out to be our conductor. A nice Italian man who noticed our troubles tried to help get the conductor's attenzione, but he just told us the same thing--you'll get your reservation on the train. Meanwhile, back on the train, Danielle has been bumped out of our seats by people who did have reservations, and we sat in the aisle next to the bathroom for the next 2 hours. The conductor came by after a awhile and asked for our 9 euro supplement fee--a fee we'd have to pay but would secure us no seat. We had to wait until a major stop when people left seats open. Luckily we weren't the only losers on the train, there were people sitting in aisles lurking for seats all up and down the train.

Once we arrived in La Spezia things went much more smoothly. We went to the tourist information office to buy our park passes for the Cinque Terre, and get a map and train schedule. We used the bathroom. We got on our train without a problem and arrived 15 minutes later in our town of residence for the next day and a half--Manarola. Though the walk uphill from the train station to the hostel with our packs nearly killed us, we were distracted by picturesque Manarola. Cute pastel buildings, boats parked outside buildings like cars, all surrounded by the big green hills overlooking the ocean.

After we dropped our stuff we spent the day wandering. We got a little lunch (a tiny pizza for me and a spinach filled something for Danielle) and some gelato for dessert (OH GOD). Then we went down to explore the ocean and sit in the sun. Because it was Sunday, the city was very crowded with tourists and we realized how lucky we'd been traveling Spain during off-peak season. We went back to the hostel at 5 to clean up for dinner. We ate at a little place overlooking the harbor. I had some minestrone (best I've ever had) and Danielle had spaghetti with crab (which actually had a whole crab buried in it). Then we had more gelato, which we ate on the path overlooking the Manarola. A skinny little Italian guy came up to talk to us, and was very taken with Danielle (as most guys are, especially the European ones). His name was Marco, and he taught us some Italian (but just the bad words). After ditching Marco, we went back to the hostel and went to bed.

We arose early on Monday for our hike. We picked up some breakfast at the store (croissants and Nutella) and ate it while waiting for the train to Riomaggiore. The Cinque Terre is five cities balancing on the edge of the Mediterranean, connected by a little train line and by hiking paths. The idea is to start in Riomaggiore, town #1, and hike from there to Manarola (#2), to Corniglia (#3), Vernazza (#4) and finish up the day in Monterosso (#5) where the good beaches are. The hike gets progressively harder as it goes.

The first stretch (Via d'amore) is wide and paved and flat. Danielle, not knowing what was coming, figured we might as well hike all the way to Monterosso and back again if it was going to be like this. Manarola to Corniglia lost the convenient paved aspect, but it was hardly difficult. We briefly explored the city of Corniglia, which was cozy and shady and smelled delicious. We then made our way on to Vernazza, a 2-hour stretch which was mostly up steps in the rock. Other than scaling the hills in Toledo, I don't think I've gotten off my ass since I climbed Camelback Mountain in AZ two Thanksgivings ago, but I kept myself together.

We got into Vernazza at lunchtime, so we sat down at a place along the harbor and ordered two big pizzas. After 3 months of Spanish food where you look at a menu and think "How will I choose something good?" we've been faced with the Italian menus where you think "How will I ever choose?" Anyway, the pizza was lovely and the waiter wrapped the leftovers up so we had food for dinner, too. We got a little gelato to eat by the water, then made our way onward and upward to Monterosso. Another difficult stretch. A lot of it was up, but the end of the hike was hundreds of steep steps down into the town of Monterosso, which seemed painful until we noticed the string of travelers who had chosen to do their hike in the opposite direction (Monterosso to Riomaggiore) who were going up the steps.

We arrived in Monterosso at 3:30 almost exactly, where we immediately shed our sweaty clothes, exchanged them for bathing suits and rain into the freezing cold ocean. We lazed away the afternoon on the beach, then caught the train back to Monterosso. At the hostel we had a shower, a rest and a leftover pizza/music trivia game party on the floor of our room, much to the confused looks of our roommates who poked in every so often. Then it was off to bed.

We arose early again the next morning for our train ride to Rome. First the short ride into La Spezia, then onto the Rome train which, now that we'd learned the system, we'd already secured reservations for and we had seats. Huzzah! A nice Italian lady in our compartments made sure we were all settled in to our spots, and even gave us a little candy halfway through the trip. We arrived in Rome about noon, got off in the enormous Rome Termini station and struggled to find the exit point that would take us to our hostel (my least favorite part of life, I've decided. Deciphering directions). Anyway, we got there eventually. It's called the Yellow Hostels, and, bless them, they offer free Internet among other things which allows me to write this blog.

I'd really hoped to take a tour of Rome that afternoon that J.J. had suggested that would take us all through the ancient part of Rome, so we checked ourselves in quickly and got on the Metro (a nice American guy who is working in Rome helped us find the right train and told us to say hi to his friend Chris, who was going to be our tour guide). We got there early and decided we'd have plenty of time for a quick lunch, so we grabbed some sandwiches at a place right next to the meeting point. After lunch we stood at the meeting point with two girls who were also waiting, students from Dartmouth, Emily and Caitlin. They were very nice, had just come from studying in Leon, France. We had so much fun talking to them we barely noticed that our tour guide was 20 minutes late. And it was ten minutes after than when one of us finally discovered that at least one of us was a dumbass and didn't notice that the tour didn't run on Tuesdays (i.e. me).

Danielle and I ran off to do some errands instead (make train reservations and pick up our tickets to see the Pope), but did call Emily and Caitlin later to get some dinner. We went to a place across the street from our hostel, where a pushy Italian waiter called Caitlin "princess" and told us we'd get 10% off and champagne on him if we sat down. We were tired, so we obliged. The food was delicious, but the waiter, trying to impress us, turned on some rather obscene music and started singing along. Alas, I have no video of this.

The next morning we (I) were a little sluggish. We did not get to the Pope blessing service by 8:30AM like the nice American priest had suggested. But we did have a horrific ride on the most crowded Metro of my life, AND run into Stephanie and her mom, grandma and mom's friend who were also heading for the Vatican. Our tickets proved useless as there were no seats left, but Danielle and I perched ourselves on a monument instead and waited for the ceremony to start so we could peer around and see Bennie.

Danielle and I have been planning to go to Rome to see the Pope for years. We wanted to go see John Paul II and yell "J.P. 2, we love you!" when he came out. When the Pope died last spring we had to rearrange our plans, opting instead to yell "Nothing rhymes with Benedict!" We hoped he'd like that just the same.

We were close enough to see the pope, and maybe a little too close to some Italian boys from Napoli who made it their mission to teach us Italian while we waited. We left after the Pope's English blessing, but we got to see him ride around in his Popemobile and let me tell you, there is no greater joy. Hee hee. Next stop was a quick glance at the line into the Vatican Museum, a decision to have lunch first, back in line for about an hour, into the museum where we wandered as much as we could, the Sistine Chapel (which looked nothing like it did in my head) and a failed search for this door Rick Steves claims leads right from the Sistine Chapel to St. Peter's. Because, apparently, no such door exists (damn you, Rick!) we decided to get back on the Metro and make our way back for a rest.

We called Stephanie and decided to meet up with her and her crew for dinner. We heard all about how much more they'd seen that day (they totally win at life) and how they dragged poor grandma walking and Metro-ing all over town. She wins a prize for that. Anyway, the food was really good and the company was even better. Stephanie lives in Maple Grove, practically seconds from my house, so we promised to see a lot of each other this summer. Her mom invited me to "Italian Night" at their house.

Today we got up, had breakfast (did I tell you about the amazing breakfast? You'd never believe this hostel) and did all the ancient Rome stuff--the Colosseum, the Forum, the Pantheon. Lunch, then a long walk back to the hostel where we rested and got a few chores done (some laundry, packing, showers and writing this blog). Tonight we're going to make ourselves some dinner here at the hostel, then go on a little night walk and see Rome all lit up. Tomorrow morning we leave for Florence.

I promise to update again the next chance I get!