Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Weekend in Cinque Terre
Okay, I have a lot to write because I was adventurous this weekend! First off…I ate with a bunch of my friends on Thursday night. Amanda made her own pasta sauce and it was delicious. It was kind of spicy and it was amazing!! She is going to teach me to cook sometime and so hopefully when I get home I will be able to host an Italian dinner party. Anyway, my roommate and I contributed the pasta and somebody else brought down a loaf of bread and some wine and we just sat around eating and talking. It was great to spend time together and also to have a solid meal. Thursday night I went to bed early because our train to Cinque Terre left from Termini station at 7:35 AM
So…Friday morning I had an adventure just getting on the train. We got there with enough time but not a lot of extra time. First we had some trouble finding the actual train area. Then we couldn’t figure out how to get our actual tickets. But no worries because we eventually made it on time onto the train and it was great because the train had 4 person compartments alla Harry Potter and the whole time I imagined that I was going to Hogwarts. I started reading a book which I got from the Temple library. It is On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I have heard mixed reviews about it but so far I have found it pretty interesting. The train ride was 4 hours long but it actually was not too bad because I had my book and I slept a bit.
We arrived in Riomaggiore (which is the smallest of the five fishing villages that are collectively called Cinque Terre) at about 12:30. If you are looking at a map, I was North of Rome on the coast of the region of Liguria. The biggest town that you might see on the map is La Spezia. I was ten minutes away from there. Anyway, we were expecting horrible things from our hostel because we booked 3 beds in a 13 bed room, but it actually ended up better than expected. We were in an apartment style place with a bathroom, small kitchen, and three bedrooms with 3 beds each. So we were able to have our own room which was great. The décor was lacking and the beds were a bit sketchy but all in all it was okay. I also had the hostel sack that Dad and Patrice got for me (Thank goodness!) that protected me from any unknown/sketchy substances or creatures in the bed. Also it kept me warm because it is silk. All in all I give it 5 stars. But back to the trip...we immediately changed into our bathing suits and went down to the super small marina. There is a path like the Marginal Way in Ogunquit that connects the five villages called the Via delle Amore (the road of love). We began to walk along it but stopped only about 5 minutes in to go swimming. We had to scramble down a rocky cliff in order to get to the water but there were already a lot of people down there so we figured that it was safe. The water was amazing. It was not too cold to swim in and it was almost a turquoise color. I swam in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the coast of Italy! That is exciting. There was a German family near us who were talking to us a bit and we stayed there and swam and sunbathed on the rocks for about an hour.
After that we continued our walk along the coast. The whole walk takes 5 hours one way and so we decided to just do some of it. We walked through the next two towns which took us about 2 hours. It was great just to walk in an area that is not urban with graffiti everywhere. The views were awesome and we stopped often to take pictures. You should check out my pictures; I played around a bit with the black + white option on the digital camera so some of the pictures look like postcards. By the time we reached the second village we were exhausted. It was about 4 PM and we had to climb a zillion and one steps to get into the village so we decided to head back after getting some water. The walk back went by quickly. I think that it was because we were looking forward to dinner! We stopped and dipped our feet in the water again before eating dinner. Anyway, we ate at an okay restaurant. I had a pasta dish with swordfish. It was not amazing but then again it was only 6 euro so I can’t complain. It was good to have fish.
After dinner we went back to our village and showered. Then we went out for gelato. I had:
Almond: This was pretty good. I think that the pinenut and almond one was a bit better though. I give it a 2.5/5
Stracciatella (choc. chip): I enjoyed this but it tasted exactly like choc. chip ice cream and so I think that I wouldn’t recommend it to someone looking for a unique gelato experience…1.75/5
We also walked around the town a bit which took all of ten minutes. It was a very very small town. Oh, I forgot to say that while we were showering and changing, etc. we met some of the other people who were staying with us. Two were studying in Bologna, one was from South Africa traveling alone, and there was also a couple from London. It was cool to talk to people. We didn’t hang out with them or anything but I just thought that whole idea that we were all traveling or backpacking and staying in this cheap hostel together was kind of cool. So…after we walked around we decided to try some of the local specialty liquor which is called Limonello. Blah! It was gross…I mean I think that you are just supposed to sip it and enjoy the lemon flavor but it was gross. So we ended up getting some chocolate and then heading to bed at around 10 PM.
The next day we were going to go swimming again but then it was kind of cool outside and so after checking out and buying our train tickets to Pisa we walked down to the coast and sat down, taking some pictures and talking. It was a very relaxing morning. Oh yeah, we went out for breakfast and I had a pastry with cream inside and a cappuccino…which I think is basically the most amazing meal in the entire world. I am becoming addicted to cappuccino. In fact…right now I am sitting on a rooftop café that is a block from my school typing this and drinking cappuccino. I love it. So…
We took a train to Pisa, which was only an hour South of us. It was a good sized little city. We only were there for a bit. We walked through it to get to the tower. The leaning tower of Pisa is not at all what I expected. I mean, it is really short. But it was still impressive. We went to the base of it to try to figure out how it was standing and it was weird because it is literally just sinking into the ground. Rachel told me that they stabilized it so that it won’t sink any farther down but it is still at a pretty steep angle. Anyway, we got fresh made sandwiches from a “proud to not be a tourist shop” shop which we ate in the shadow of the tower on the grass. We didn’t take any pictures of us knocking down the tower or holding it up…but we did see a group of fifteen or so Italian teenaged girls doing all sorts of strange things, like climbing on each other’s backs and pushing the tower over and such. It was pretty amusing. Then we slowly made our way down the main street in Pisa, stopping to do some shopping along the way. Our train ride back to Rome was hellish because we took the slower cheaper train but we made it through by taking strange pictures and videos of each other. You’ll see when you look at my pictures if you haven’t already.
So that was my Friday and Saturday…are you ready for Sunday? You may have to take a break and grab a cappuccino…
Sunday I went with a lot of people (and my Anthropology teacher) to a local wine festival in a town called Marino which is about 35 minutes outside of Rome by train. It was a very long and interesting day. We arrived about 3 hours before the planned festivities started. So we first walked around and looked at the quaint little town and stuff like that. Then, we sat down to have lunch. There were roasted pigs everywhere and Italian men were hacking them to pieces and selling sandwiches which actually turned out to be delicious. The meat was much appreciated by my body since I have not been able to eat a lot of meat lately (I have basically been surviving on pasta, mozzarella, bran cereal, and the occasional scoop of nutella). So…we enjoyed our sandwiches in a small piazza and there were many people milling around. It was interesting because this is one of the only times that I have seen drunk Italians. There were huge groups of teenagers who were drinking wine out of two liter bottles as if there lives depended on it…but at least they were having fun. I did have one glass of deliciously fruity red wine which I thoroughly enjoyed. I think that I am starting to like red wine more and more. Anyway, then we went to get a spot to watch the parade was…interesting. There were so many people crowded around to see it and all it was was Italian people dressed up in really cheap, tacky looking medieval costumes. I took a lot of pictures so you will be able to experience the parade. Oh, I also took close up pictures of people in the crowd as I was waiting for the parade to start. I just recently discovered the super zoom feature of the digital camera. There were some pretty interesting looking people there…check out the pictures…they are a an anthropological study of humanity and most are pretty funny. I focused mainly on cute little kids or extremely old haggard women. Okay so, we went to get a cappuccino (I know, I know) and find a bathroom. Then I really wanted to leave because I had a lot of work to do and Katherine and I tried to make the 5:40 train…I mean we really tried. We were pushing through the crowd and then sprinting down these little side streets trying to find the stupid station. Alas, we didn’t make it in time. At the time I was stressed out because I had homework but when I reflect on it today, I really wish that I could have see myself sprinting through the side streets…people must have thought that I was incredibly drunk. O well. It was fun. So, we decided to go back and wait for the next train. Wine was supposed to come out of the fountains in the town at 6 PM and so we went and sat by a fountain. Well at about 6:05 a voice came over the loudspeaker and said something in Italian and then the whole crowd starting booing. I think what happened was that that particular fountain was malfunctioning. So we ended up not being able to see the wine in the fountain but one of my friends said that it wasn’t that impressive. We definitely did not want to miss the next train at 6:40 so we went down to the station. And it was a good thing we did because the train didn’t come at 6:40…it came at 7:40. We had to wait there for about an hour and fifteen. As you can imagine, that made me really really happy. But…I decided not to stress and so I didn’t end up going to school to do homework and things turned out fine. I went to bed early and such and it was nice.
Right now it is 4 PM. I had photography early and I am excited and frustrated about that class. I think that the teacher gives us a lot of freedom, and I like that but he also doesn’t exactly teach us much. I have to rely on the TAs to show me how to actually make a contact sheet, develop film, etc. I am also so scared of wasting the stupid paper that we had to buy (which had better be made out of gold it was so expensive). But today I made some contact sheets and printed a picture. The picture turned out okay. The negative was dirty and so it was kind of scratched, but I am glad that I was finally able to print something. I will hopefully be able to do some more this week…I mean I have to because I am kind of behind the other people in the class. Then I had Italian, which is always fun. Cristiano wanted to know if I spoke French or Spanish because he said that the Italian language comes very easily to me… I think that it is definitely because of all of the Latin I have had. That is all I have done today so far…I have a class in 2 hours and we are watching a movie so I won’t get out of here till much later, probably around 8:30 ish or later if I decide to print some more photos. We will see.
Oh...and the most exciting news of all is that my Mom and Momo (and possibly Kirk for part of it) are definitely coming out in October and I am going to meet them in England for 10 days of wonderfulness. I can’t wait. I am sooooo excited. I am really glad that I will be able to see them. It will be a much needed taste of home at the end of October. So…I have to book my ticket to London (I don’t mean to make you all jealous but it is only going to cost me 50 euros roundtrip!!) soon and that is exciting.
Also, I am not sure if I mentioned this, I just remembered it now. Last week Rachel and I stopped into blockbuster and one of my worst fears came true. In the States, I am always terrified that I will accidentally open an emergency door and set off the alarm. Well… that is exactly what I did and you know what? It actually was not as terrible as I imagined it to be…It was kind of amusing. An alarm went off but I think I just got the “stupid tourists” look and a mutter from the employees. O well…
So that is all for now. Except…I think that I forgot to mention the other gelato that I had…
Mint: This definitely came from a syrup, but I love mint and so I was okay with that. But…I would not wish this on anyone who didn’t like mint…1/5
Soy Cappuccino: Interesting. This was less creamy than the regular gelato and so I guess I would say that if you are in the mood for something lighter but not fruity soy is the way to go…3/5
Okay, that is really all. I love you all and I hope that you are enjoying reading about my life as much as I enjoy telling you. I can’t wait to see you all in 75 days!!
So…Friday morning I had an adventure just getting on the train. We got there with enough time but not a lot of extra time. First we had some trouble finding the actual train area. Then we couldn’t figure out how to get our actual tickets. But no worries because we eventually made it on time onto the train and it was great because the train had 4 person compartments alla Harry Potter and the whole time I imagined that I was going to Hogwarts. I started reading a book which I got from the Temple library. It is On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I have heard mixed reviews about it but so far I have found it pretty interesting. The train ride was 4 hours long but it actually was not too bad because I had my book and I slept a bit.
We arrived in Riomaggiore (which is the smallest of the five fishing villages that are collectively called Cinque Terre) at about 12:30. If you are looking at a map, I was North of Rome on the coast of the region of Liguria. The biggest town that you might see on the map is La Spezia. I was ten minutes away from there. Anyway, we were expecting horrible things from our hostel because we booked 3 beds in a 13 bed room, but it actually ended up better than expected. We were in an apartment style place with a bathroom, small kitchen, and three bedrooms with 3 beds each. So we were able to have our own room which was great. The décor was lacking and the beds were a bit sketchy but all in all it was okay. I also had the hostel sack that Dad and Patrice got for me (Thank goodness!) that protected me from any unknown/sketchy substances or creatures in the bed. Also it kept me warm because it is silk. All in all I give it 5 stars. But back to the trip...we immediately changed into our bathing suits and went down to the super small marina. There is a path like the Marginal Way in Ogunquit that connects the five villages called the Via delle Amore (the road of love). We began to walk along it but stopped only about 5 minutes in to go swimming. We had to scramble down a rocky cliff in order to get to the water but there were already a lot of people down there so we figured that it was safe. The water was amazing. It was not too cold to swim in and it was almost a turquoise color. I swam in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the coast of Italy! That is exciting. There was a German family near us who were talking to us a bit and we stayed there and swam and sunbathed on the rocks for about an hour.
After that we continued our walk along the coast. The whole walk takes 5 hours one way and so we decided to just do some of it. We walked through the next two towns which took us about 2 hours. It was great just to walk in an area that is not urban with graffiti everywhere. The views were awesome and we stopped often to take pictures. You should check out my pictures; I played around a bit with the black + white option on the digital camera so some of the pictures look like postcards. By the time we reached the second village we were exhausted. It was about 4 PM and we had to climb a zillion and one steps to get into the village so we decided to head back after getting some water. The walk back went by quickly. I think that it was because we were looking forward to dinner! We stopped and dipped our feet in the water again before eating dinner. Anyway, we ate at an okay restaurant. I had a pasta dish with swordfish. It was not amazing but then again it was only 6 euro so I can’t complain. It was good to have fish.
After dinner we went back to our village and showered. Then we went out for gelato. I had:
Almond: This was pretty good. I think that the pinenut and almond one was a bit better though. I give it a 2.5/5
Stracciatella (choc. chip): I enjoyed this but it tasted exactly like choc. chip ice cream and so I think that I wouldn’t recommend it to someone looking for a unique gelato experience…1.75/5
We also walked around the town a bit which took all of ten minutes. It was a very very small town. Oh, I forgot to say that while we were showering and changing, etc. we met some of the other people who were staying with us. Two were studying in Bologna, one was from South Africa traveling alone, and there was also a couple from London. It was cool to talk to people. We didn’t hang out with them or anything but I just thought that whole idea that we were all traveling or backpacking and staying in this cheap hostel together was kind of cool. So…after we walked around we decided to try some of the local specialty liquor which is called Limonello. Blah! It was gross…I mean I think that you are just supposed to sip it and enjoy the lemon flavor but it was gross. So we ended up getting some chocolate and then heading to bed at around 10 PM.
The next day we were going to go swimming again but then it was kind of cool outside and so after checking out and buying our train tickets to Pisa we walked down to the coast and sat down, taking some pictures and talking. It was a very relaxing morning. Oh yeah, we went out for breakfast and I had a pastry with cream inside and a cappuccino…which I think is basically the most amazing meal in the entire world. I am becoming addicted to cappuccino. In fact…right now I am sitting on a rooftop café that is a block from my school typing this and drinking cappuccino. I love it. So…
We took a train to Pisa, which was only an hour South of us. It was a good sized little city. We only were there for a bit. We walked through it to get to the tower. The leaning tower of Pisa is not at all what I expected. I mean, it is really short. But it was still impressive. We went to the base of it to try to figure out how it was standing and it was weird because it is literally just sinking into the ground. Rachel told me that they stabilized it so that it won’t sink any farther down but it is still at a pretty steep angle. Anyway, we got fresh made sandwiches from a “proud to not be a tourist shop” shop which we ate in the shadow of the tower on the grass. We didn’t take any pictures of us knocking down the tower or holding it up…but we did see a group of fifteen or so Italian teenaged girls doing all sorts of strange things, like climbing on each other’s backs and pushing the tower over and such. It was pretty amusing. Then we slowly made our way down the main street in Pisa, stopping to do some shopping along the way. Our train ride back to Rome was hellish because we took the slower cheaper train but we made it through by taking strange pictures and videos of each other. You’ll see when you look at my pictures if you haven’t already.
So that was my Friday and Saturday…are you ready for Sunday? You may have to take a break and grab a cappuccino…
Sunday I went with a lot of people (and my Anthropology teacher) to a local wine festival in a town called Marino which is about 35 minutes outside of Rome by train. It was a very long and interesting day. We arrived about 3 hours before the planned festivities started. So we first walked around and looked at the quaint little town and stuff like that. Then, we sat down to have lunch. There were roasted pigs everywhere and Italian men were hacking them to pieces and selling sandwiches which actually turned out to be delicious. The meat was much appreciated by my body since I have not been able to eat a lot of meat lately (I have basically been surviving on pasta, mozzarella, bran cereal, and the occasional scoop of nutella). So…we enjoyed our sandwiches in a small piazza and there were many people milling around. It was interesting because this is one of the only times that I have seen drunk Italians. There were huge groups of teenagers who were drinking wine out of two liter bottles as if there lives depended on it…but at least they were having fun. I did have one glass of deliciously fruity red wine which I thoroughly enjoyed. I think that I am starting to like red wine more and more. Anyway, then we went to get a spot to watch the parade was…interesting. There were so many people crowded around to see it and all it was was Italian people dressed up in really cheap, tacky looking medieval costumes. I took a lot of pictures so you will be able to experience the parade. Oh, I also took close up pictures of people in the crowd as I was waiting for the parade to start. I just recently discovered the super zoom feature of the digital camera. There were some pretty interesting looking people there…check out the pictures…they are a an anthropological study of humanity and most are pretty funny. I focused mainly on cute little kids or extremely old haggard women. Okay so, we went to get a cappuccino (I know, I know) and find a bathroom. Then I really wanted to leave because I had a lot of work to do and Katherine and I tried to make the 5:40 train…I mean we really tried. We were pushing through the crowd and then sprinting down these little side streets trying to find the stupid station. Alas, we didn’t make it in time. At the time I was stressed out because I had homework but when I reflect on it today, I really wish that I could have see myself sprinting through the side streets…people must have thought that I was incredibly drunk. O well. It was fun. So, we decided to go back and wait for the next train. Wine was supposed to come out of the fountains in the town at 6 PM and so we went and sat by a fountain. Well at about 6:05 a voice came over the loudspeaker and said something in Italian and then the whole crowd starting booing. I think what happened was that that particular fountain was malfunctioning. So we ended up not being able to see the wine in the fountain but one of my friends said that it wasn’t that impressive. We definitely did not want to miss the next train at 6:40 so we went down to the station. And it was a good thing we did because the train didn’t come at 6:40…it came at 7:40. We had to wait there for about an hour and fifteen. As you can imagine, that made me really really happy. But…I decided not to stress and so I didn’t end up going to school to do homework and things turned out fine. I went to bed early and such and it was nice.
Right now it is 4 PM. I had photography early and I am excited and frustrated about that class. I think that the teacher gives us a lot of freedom, and I like that but he also doesn’t exactly teach us much. I have to rely on the TAs to show me how to actually make a contact sheet, develop film, etc. I am also so scared of wasting the stupid paper that we had to buy (which had better be made out of gold it was so expensive). But today I made some contact sheets and printed a picture. The picture turned out okay. The negative was dirty and so it was kind of scratched, but I am glad that I was finally able to print something. I will hopefully be able to do some more this week…I mean I have to because I am kind of behind the other people in the class. Then I had Italian, which is always fun. Cristiano wanted to know if I spoke French or Spanish because he said that the Italian language comes very easily to me… I think that it is definitely because of all of the Latin I have had. That is all I have done today so far…I have a class in 2 hours and we are watching a movie so I won’t get out of here till much later, probably around 8:30 ish or later if I decide to print some more photos. We will see.
Oh...and the most exciting news of all is that my Mom and Momo (and possibly Kirk for part of it) are definitely coming out in October and I am going to meet them in England for 10 days of wonderfulness. I can’t wait. I am sooooo excited. I am really glad that I will be able to see them. It will be a much needed taste of home at the end of October. So…I have to book my ticket to London (I don’t mean to make you all jealous but it is only going to cost me 50 euros roundtrip!!) soon and that is exciting.
Also, I am not sure if I mentioned this, I just remembered it now. Last week Rachel and I stopped into blockbuster and one of my worst fears came true. In the States, I am always terrified that I will accidentally open an emergency door and set off the alarm. Well… that is exactly what I did and you know what? It actually was not as terrible as I imagined it to be…It was kind of amusing. An alarm went off but I think I just got the “stupid tourists” look and a mutter from the employees. O well…
So that is all for now. Except…I think that I forgot to mention the other gelato that I had…
Mint: This definitely came from a syrup, but I love mint and so I was okay with that. But…I would not wish this on anyone who didn’t like mint…1/5
Soy Cappuccino: Interesting. This was less creamy than the regular gelato and so I guess I would say that if you are in the mood for something lighter but not fruity soy is the way to go…3/5
Okay, that is really all. I love you all and I hope that you are enjoying reading about my life as much as I enjoy telling you. I can’t wait to see you all in 75 days!!
# posted by sarahconcannon @ 3:34 AM 
