Shopping in San Lorenzo

Day 39: Monday

Class wasn’t until noon, so I got to sleep in. We had a pop quiz sort of essay during class about Cosimo de Medici. I got to use Accent’s computers a little during the break, until a class kicked me out. I was able to use them for a bit after class though, and after I walked home to get ready to meet Kari and Elli for shopping. I somehow managed to find them in the market by San Lorenzo. Since my money still hadn’t been transferred to my account, I couldn’t do my real shopping, but I did buy some gifts (can't spoil it!), and our bottle opener magnet for our fridge next year, and a keychain. I wasn’t feeling well still, so I went home to nap. Elli, Breanne, and Sarah went over to Kari’s for dinner, which was stirfry, so I passed. Instead I made myself some spiral mac and cheese, and chatted with Mike while we ate dinner. He let me use his computer again after dinner while we hung out for the night. 

Cinque Terre Day 2

Day 38: Sunday

Woke up around 7 to hear church bells ringing continuously for at least a half hour, then fell back to sleep for about an hour. We got ready to leave, and grabbed some breakfast at a little café on the way. I got an egg sandwich and a pastry, and Elli got a take-away omlette. We bought our passes for the train and the trails, and began making our way down Via Dell’Amore toward Manarola. We continued along the path until we arrived in Manarola, which was almost the same as Riomaggiore, with the hills, stairs, cliffs, and marina. We walked around the town and saw the vertical vineyards, found a piazza with a great view and a church, and then made our way down to the marina. We arrived just in time to see a couple girls trying to jump off a huge rock into the water. We were convinced we were about to watch them jump to their death, so we kept moving. We heard the splash of one jump, and the other one chickened out and never jumped. Stupid girls. The water in the marina looked so perfectly inviting, but it was not time for us to swim yet, so we pressed on. We found a path along the cliffs that we decided to walk along, getting a view of the other villages, and we saw some people swimming in the bay. We decided it was probably about time to move on, however, and we hopped on the train to Corniglia. We were greeted at the train station by a huge cliff with endless stairs to the top. We were dismayed, but we nevertheless began the climb up. 382 stairs later, we were in the town of Corniglia. It was much like the first two, only much higher up, and it seemed the most lived in out of all the villages. We walked around, saw a view of the beach but didn’t feeling like climbing down only to have to climb back up, got some ice cream, pet a kitty (I did, not Elli), and then had to head back down to catch the next train. The next town is Vernazza. It was much more touristy than the other villages, and when we arrived at the marina, it was packed with people. We decided to get some lunch, so we went to a place back by the train station and got some pesto, since the region is famous for it. Our waiter was super adorable and I liked him. After lunch we wandered through the village, found a place with a view to take a picture, then wandered back down to the marina and sat with our feet in the water for about a half hour. I even let the little fishies get close to my feet! We walked back to the train station and bought some postcards on the way. There was a kitty sitting in a box in the place we bought the postcards from, so I got to pet him! Finally we hopped on the train to head toward Monterosso, the final village. We stayed in Monterosso for a total of 30 minutes. It was awful. This is the only village with an actual beach with sand, but the entire stretch of beach was entirely PACKED with people and umbrellas. It reminded me of Waikiki beach. We tried to wander around the town, but there was literally nothing, so we decided to get back on the train and go to Manarola to where we saw the people swimming earlier. We were so hot and so ready for a swim by the time we found a place to put our stuff down and change. The place we decided on was amazing. We were swimming literally underneath sheer cliffs. There were caves in the water as well. The water was so refreshing, and we swam for quite some time before we finally got out to put sunscreen on. We took pictures of ourselves swimming from the path above, and we look like tiny little white specks in the ocean. We laid in our spot for as long as our time allowed, and I fell asleep for a bit. It was soooo hot. I got changed back into my clothes while Elli went for one last swim, and we reluctantly packed up our stuff to head back to the train station to go home. I grabbed a hot dog on my way to the station, then we waited for the train to La Spezia, then grabbed some fries from McDonald’s when we got there while we waited for the train back to Florence. I slept and read on the way home, and finally we made it home. It was so nice to return to somewhere familiar. It was nice, however, until I returned home to find my computer non-functional. It simply would just not turn on. It said it didn’t recognize the adapter, and I tried to run a diagnosis but it didn’t find anything. In addition to finding a dead computer, I developed a sore throat on the train ride home and was starting to feel sick again after being better for about a week. I felt absolutely horrible about everything, especially after such a perfect weekend. I showered, made food, told everyone about our weekend, and showed Mike and David my pictures, and Mike was nice and let me use his computer.

Cinque Terre Day 1

Day 37: Saturday

Elli made English breakfast aka beans, fried eggs, and chips (aka fries) and it was dericious nomnomnom. We realized we did not have a lot of time and had to rush to do our dishes and make the train. We made it though, and we settled in for the two hour ride. We arrived in La Spezia Centrale, waited in line to buy our tickets to Riomaggiore, and waited a couple minutes for the train. The ride was only about five minutes, and as we went along, we could see little flashes of ocean through the window. Finally, we arrived. The stop was in a tunnel, and as soon as we stepped out we saw a beautiful view of the sea. Elli and I just laughed at how ridiculously amazing our weekend was about to be. We filled our water bottles, and I tried to take some money out of the ATM, only to realize that I was out of money in that account, so I would have to survive the weekend on the 50 euro that I had. Then we walked through a tunnel toward the center of town. On the other side we were greeted by a gigantic hill which we had to climb up to find the office of our hostel to check in. We finally made it up the hill, swiftly realizing that anyone who lives in Cinque Terre is obviously fit. The woman in the office told us our rooms aren’t ready yet and to go hang out by the beach and come back at 7. We did just that. We walked down toward the marina, saw some cute little boats and a beautiful view of the town, then walked along the path by the rocks until we found the “beach.” It was very much a beach European style, and most Americans would’ve complained. It was all rocks, no sand. It was already pretty crowded, and the rocks were very hot, and I stupidly forgot my towel. We found a spot, and immediately changed and ran into the water. It was too hot to wait. Getting in was a bit difficult because the waves come in and push you against the rocks, so I just started swimming as soon as I could to avoid being pushed over and getting a face full of salt water again. We swam around enjoying ourselves beyond belief for a bit, until we decided we should probably go back and put sunscreen on. Getting back to the shore was also a huge struggle, and I’m sure all the Europeans were judging the clumsy American girls. After about 10 minutes of trying to figure out how to open the sunscreen, we gave up and just took the entire top off. We applied our sunscreen, opened our Bacardi Breezers, and laid out to enjoy the sun. We couldn’t enjoy it for very long, however, before we got too hot to bare it and had to go back in the water.  We floated around in the water a bit more until we decided it was about time to head back to our hostel office to get checked into our room. When we got there, we were led by a man to another man, who then led us through an alley, up some stairs, and into our rooms. He showed us our sleeping arrangements and quickly explained the bathroom and a few rules. When we asked whether or not we needed keys he responded, “No keys, the five lands are safe.”  We felt nasty from all the salt water, so we decided to rinse off quickly before going to find dinner. The shower was better than the one we have in Florence because it actually had water pressure and it was actually hot. It felt very nice. We met a couple of our roommates after our showers, Alice from Australia and Russell from California. Then we wandered down the big hill street to a place to eat, and it was actually very nice. Our waiter was extremely attractive, and I had delicious panna cotta for dessert. People around us were eating fish, which is understandable in a sea side village, but they all had the heads and eyes and it was too scary for me! After dinner we wandered around Riomaggiore a bit more. We arrived at the marina just in time to see the sunset over the mountains, and it was honestly one of the most perfect moments of the entire trip. After that beautiful view, we decided to try to find how to get to the clock tower, so we simply climbed every flight of stairs we encountered, climbing higher and higher until we finally found it. Then we went back home to grab our bottle of wine to enjoy sitting by the water, and we found a spot on the rocks and drank our wine as we chatted about random things. After drinking half a bottle of wine, we wanted to see the stars, so we wandered further down the path where it was darker so we could get a good look. Finally we were exhausted and ready for bed, so we returned home. There were two rooms. Elli, Russell, Alice, and three other girls were in one room, although they were short one bed, and me and a French couple were in the other room.

Michelangelo's David

Day 36: Friday

I woke up at 5am to go watch the sunrise to make up for the time I missed out. Elli and I walked back to Piazzale Michelangelo, and made it just in time to see the sun rising through the clouds. Since it was cloudy it wasn’t the best sunrise, but it was still an amazing view of the city and mountains, and much better with no people around. We were tired, however, and decided to go back home where I got to sleep for two hours before we got up to go watch the parade for the celebration of San Giovanni, a local holiday, which is why we didn’t have class. We went over to the boys’ to wait for Petrie, and then him, us, Mike, David, Andrew, and Alex set out to see if we could find the parade. Accent had told us it was by Santa Maria Novella, but Joe, Brandon, and Dylan were over there and said nothing was going on, so we decided to look near the Duomo. It was busy, but there definitely was no parade. We finally gave up, and went with Mike and David and Alex to get their tickets for the death match later in the day. I was still tired, so after lunch (spiral mac and cheese again yaaay) I took another nap. Then I woke up and was excited because it was our tour with Rocky at the academia! It took a while to get inside, but when we did, we spent an hour standing in front of David while Rocky poured his endless knowledge on us. We learned that the marble used to make David was 17 feet tall and quarried from nearby Carrarra mountains, although how they got a several ton block of marble back from there in those days is beyond my comprehension. We also learned that the commission for the statue was passed before Michelangelo was born, and that it was used by two other sculptors before he even got his hands on it. We also learned that David was struck by lightning long ago when he lived in front of Palazzo Vecchio, and now his ankle is weak so they had to wrap tape around it to make sure he doesn’t fall over. I also didn’t know that at some point his arm had fallen off, and Vasari claims he helped reattach it. We also analyzed the political implications of Michelanglo’s David, him being obviously much older than 14, and also discussed the debate of whether it captures the moment of before or after David fought Goliath. Rocky may have some influence on my opinion, but I think even without him giving us his opinion I still would’ve thought that it was before. Then we moved to look at the slaves, which are unfinished sculptures that were supposed to be for Pope Julius’s tomb, but Michelangelo never finished because he was constantly being called away for other projects and the political powers were constantly shifting. We spent a little while longer wandering through the rest of the museum, but there was nothing else worth noting, since the museum was built to house David anyway.  Elli and I went out to eat at a place between my apartment and my parent’s hotel, and then we went back and got ready for the fireworks. It was already super crowded by the river, and we couldn’t really see, but Mike and I found a spot where we could see at least a little bit, so we were satisfied. The display was impressively long, about 45 minutes, but all fireworks displays are always pretty much the same. I’m sure it would’ve been much better up close. It felt sort of like our 4^th of July, it being so close, and seeing those fireworks far and away more than made up for missing out on the 4^th.  No one else really wanted to go out except for me, Elli, Kari, and Mike, so we decided to go over to the Old Stove by the Palazzo Vecchio instead of the one by the Duomo we always go to. David promised to meet us later, but he was too sick. We had a good time sitting in the basement and hanging out, then went home.