Hey everyone!
On might call this the beginning of the end, but I just call it the end of our shared adventure. Granted, your involvement has been rather passive and vicarious, so this matters a bit less for you guys. Anyway, ONWARD!
When I left off, "we" were in Florence going to Cinque Terre to enjoy some...stuff. I actually knew almost nothing about the place before we ended up there except that the houses were pretty colors in the pictures on the internet. Clearly a knowledgeable world traveler.
We met Lee, a guy from USC (briefly mentioned in the last post), the day before; he happened to be going to the same place so we decided to take the same train. Prior to that, however, it was Food Time because when isn't Food Time? That's rhetorical. Food Time is all of the times. Unfortunately we have gone off on a tangent a bit. Let's try this again.
We headed to the food market with all of our stuff because it was on our way to the train station. Lee knew the way and also a place that sold massive four euro sandwiches, so we grabbed them to eat on the train. Lee is my new hero on account of he was able to put my suitcase on the train and on the shelf above our seat because I guess some people get to be big and strong and some people get to be pathetic so the big, strong people feel bad for you and put your stuff on shelves. Whatever it takes, I guess.
On the ride, I mostly slept and Katie and Lee talked and were sociable. To each his own. It was a couple hours until we made it just outside of Cinque Terre. We had to take a local train into our respective towns because Cinque Terre is made up of five towns, a fact Katie and I didn't know until Lee pointed out.
Katie: I wonder how many towns there are...?
Lee: Uh, five. Cinque is five.
Katie and Me: Ooooooh. I feel dumb.
Lee was staying in the first one, Riomaggiore and we were in the third one, Corniglia. We split up at Lee's stop but made plans to have dinner together, providing we both had wi-fi to communicate about a location and time later that night.
Katie had told me there were roughly four-hundred stairs to climb when we got to Corniglia, so to say I was dreading it would be an understatement. I can't count the number of times I considered just leaving my suitcase somewhere and telling the universe it won and had broken all of the spirit in my heart. Fortunately, there happened to be a bus (See van that was called a bus) that drove up to the city. They could have charged me all of the money in my wallet to get to town and I would have eagerly paid it in order to not climb up all of those stairs and cry my heart out when I finally reached the top. I guarantee that would have happened. No doubt.
That doesn't mean it wasn't a strugglebus, because the aisle of the van wasn't really wide enough for my bag. Apparently bringing All Of The Things was frowned upon in that establishment. I was glad to make it to the top of the rather large hill and get away from (some of) the staring eyes. Luckily our hostel was pretty close to the drop off point, so it wasn't a long walk. But, because life, there was a plethora of stairs which was a good game. I finally made it up all of them only to open the door of our hostel to find....More stairs. Sometimes I think life is a cosmic joke. (Not even just my life. Like all of life for everybody is great big joke. Guess I'll never know.)
I trudged up the stairs and down the hall to our room to settle in. Because of our late night, Katie and I planned on taking a naps and meeting Lee for dinner. We didn't have much time to follow through with this as Lee decided to hop on the train to our town. We had about an hour to ourselves before we went out to meet him. Even in our small town, we got briefly lost trying to find the Super Duper stairs because getting lost is our M.O. Corniglia is rather small though, so this didn't last very long and it turned out Lee was right at the top of them. Katie and I felt kind of bad because he had been exploring while we lazed about. Whoops.
Upon meeting up again, we looked for a place to eat where we could have a great view. As you may have guessed from the reference to eight billion stairs, Corniglia is at the top of a hill so we thought a place with a view would be easy to find. After a brief-ish search, it was clear that this wasn't necessarily the case. In the end, there only ended up being one place that fit the description and it happened to be the first place we looked.
Because we were so close to the ocean (Sea? I don't know...), it seemed like a good idea to order seafood. And it was, but it was also rather...Terrifying? Disturbing? Perhaps I should explain. I ordered pasta with shrimp and ended up with full shrimp with all the heads and the legs and they were staring at me with their cold, dead eyes...It was scary. And after I got over the little legs and antennas and suchlike, it was rather delicious. But I was careful about what I ordered after that, let me tell you.
After dinner, it was nearly sunset so we decided to check it out. When we had been looking for a restaurant earlier, we spotted a place for a flawless view of the sunset. Actually, there was a small mountainous region between us and the sun but it still ended up being magically beautiful. With the clouds and the sea (Ocean?) and sun, it was excellent. Pictures will come, obviously.
Later, after the setting of the setting of the sun, Lee, Katie and I ended up talking for quite some time. It was relaxing to chat with both of them, but we were all rather tired so it was bedtime. And showertime for some of us (Me. Showertime for me).
The next day dawned bright and early, and Katie and I headed to a small cafe for breakfast. A pastry and cappuccino later and we headed down to the train station to wait for Lee. I had gotten used to Italy not caring about things like schedules and things not always going right, so it wasn't a huge surprise when the train was almost an hour late. After we found Lee, the three of us immediately jumped back on and took it to the last stop in Monterosso. We checked out the town for a little bit and decided to get a snack because Lee really wanted to try focaccia and pesto, which was apparently a specialty in Cinque Terre. We found a little shop and split some between the three of us. The pesto was so good we all decided we were going to get some for dinner that night.
Done eating our snack, it was time to find the path between Monterosso and Vernazza. We talked to the tourist information and they gave us the low down on all the paths and we found out that our hike would take about an hour and a half. Excellent, too much exercise isn't good for us! We found the trail and then the fun began. Italy wanted us to pay for the path I guess, so we bought passes that let us go on the trails and take the trains for the rest of the day. Although we were annoyed by the sneakiness of the pay-for-the-trail people, this ended up being a pretty good investment.
Then began one rather long, difficult-ish hike. It was spectacular but, because of the hills and narrowness, rather precarious at points. The stairs at the beginning nearly killed me and around each turn I was praying they would end. But, alas, they never did. I'm actually still climbing them. Okay, exaggerations again. They did eventually stop, even though I almost died to reach the top. Luckily, we never had any more that were as intense. There were eight billion tourists all along the path, mostly all French. I probably saw more French people in Italy than I did in Paris No joke.
The climb was a bit strenuous but completely worth it. We had excellent views of the ocean and the forest was really beautiful. Upon finally making it to Vernazza, we were quite tired and hungry and we saw a delightful sight to alleviate our sufferings. Sorry, guys. I worked today, so I guess it makes me feel a bit melodramatic or some such thing. Anyway, seafood in a cone guys. Seafood. In a cone.
I was terrified of the anchovies that were supposed to come with it, so instead I had extra shrimp. Likewise, I had a fear of the slightly tentacle-y calamari but I still bravely ate it. And it was good so maybe I'll try and eat somewhat weird stuff more often. (Crazy food is not my thing. Mac & Cheese is my thing.) We adventured more in the town, but all of the different towns sort of blended together because we ended up visiting all five that day. They all had there own character but similar looking houses and access to the waterfront, so I can distinguish them in my mind, but I won't be able to describe them each to you properly. Suffice it to say, we went five for five in eating food in all of them with gelato in Manarola and pesto pasta in Riomaggiore.
I can for sure tell you about a couple places. We went down to a rocky beach in one of the towns (Vernazza maybe?) and hung out on some massive rocks by the water in Riomaggiore, Lee's town. Because that was our last stop, we ate dinner there with Lee. We all had a variety of pesto pasta, and because Lee was so in love with it, he overpaid for a little baby jar of pesto. When in Italy, right? Our dinner conversation included many gems, including Lee apparently trying to teach himself to be ambidextrous. How cool is that? (Note: Katie and I were really excited to have another companion. Forgive my still-excited-ness where I talk too much and seem kind of creepy. No pasa nada.)
After dinner, we headed down to the waterfront again because it needed to be done. Or something. It was extremely relaxing just to hang out and talk down there. Until the rain came. Katie and I said goodbye to Lee before exiting stage left toward the train station. And then it was like the heavens opened up and were incredibly depressed that A) We were all leaving Cinque Terre and B) That I had been unable to eat Chipotle for four months. The second situation has been fixed, thank you for asking. (Tangent: I forgot freedom tasted so much like Chipotle. 'Murica.)
While the rain came raining down, Katie and I hid from it under an overhang and raced into the train and were greeted by non-rain by the time we made it back to Corniglia which we were grateful for because we decided to climb the Too Many Stairs. My legs protested this, but I made it to the top. On the way, we were greeted by some Germans in lederhosen who had had a bit too much to drink. All five of them stopped on the stairs and started saying "Shhh!" as we approached. Right after we passed, they burst into a boisterous German song. Stay classy, guys.
We made it back to the hostel, packed up, and got ready for our next travel day: to Venice!
The next day dawned early and we, as per our luck, missed the bus down to the train station by five minutes. We had budgeted plenty of time though (We did learn from the Istanbul mistake. Damn you, Turkey.), and followed the windy road down because going down the stairs would have surely ended me. We began the waiting process and eventually hopped on the train to the other train station and rode more trains in a circuitous route to Venice. I'll spare you the description because riding trains is not so exciting. My one complaint is about Pringles because I didn't get as many as I should have in my baby Pringles can. So there's that. (Tangents. Tangents everywhere! Can I write a post where I keep on track for the entire thing?)
Tangent 8721hxh820ds0002139: I must retrieve my notebook to remember what the heck I did during my first day in Venice. It was a week and a half ago but I remember...nothing. I remember nothing.
That's not entirely accurate but I needed a refresher. So here we go. When we approached Venice, I was mostly blown away. I mean, yes, canals. I knew there were going to be canals. But it was surreal to have the train tracks be almost on top of the water and when we stepped outside it was all water. Everywhere. We had walking directions to our hostel but my suitcase told me it absolutely wouldn't forgive me if we walked. And, me, being a pushover, listened to said suitcase and decided a water-bus might not be a bad idea. This conversation might be a complete figment of my imagination.
In case you're wondering, a water-bus is just a boat. A really overcrowded, slow boat that eventually gets you to your destination. Even so, I would have actually enjoyed the water journey had I not been lugging around the Luggage of Death through hordes of people. We did arrive, though, and wove our way through a lot of tourists and over bridges until we reached our final hostel. Guess what, guys. There were a lot of stairs.
We chucked our stuff and peaced out to see the city. (Peaced apparently isn't a word. I make my own words as needed, here at Emily Was Abroad.) As all good tourists do in Venice, we first headed out to Piazza San Marco (Saint Mark's Square) to
kick pigeons see the sights. We got a little turned around because every once in a while a street just drops off into a canal and then you are left at a dead end. After some back-tracking and wandering, we found the people and the people found the square. The touristy parts of Venice teem with people, but we found a mostly out of the way place to sit and make some plans for the rest of our time in the city.
We decided to find the Rialto Bridge, the oldest bridge in Venice and then head to the second largest church in the city for the afternoon. We found the bridge fairly easily because Katie is a navigating pro, however, there were some problems in regards to the church. I still actually have no idea where it is. We thought we found it and actually went inside for mass but nope. It wasn't that big and didn't fit the description in the guidebook, so we had mass in a random church in a language I don't understand. Adventures.
Because of traveling earlier in the day, we decided to have an early night and therefore got dinner pretty early. I had margarita pizza, which was incredibly delicious. I will try not to make all of my posts a menu, so we won't get into the food that much. But really. If you are ever looking to have a good meal, just jet on over to Italy, stay forever, and eat everything. You can't go wrong. Although we finished eating fairly quickly, we hung around at the restaurant for a while but it became clear we needed to get some sleep and it was hostel time. And sleep time!
We got up at eight-ish the following morning, so we could get into the Doge's Palace without waiting in the massive lines that had been our downfall in Rome. Italy is a late-rising country, so it wasn't really a surprise that there weren't a lot of breakfast places open that early. We did, luckily, find a place with pastries and coffee. After our brief meal, it was time to go to the palace. For the first time in our history of world traveling, we waited in zero lines. It was fantastic.
We were unable to take pictures of the palace and I don't break rules. Or I didn't in this case. The interior was beautiful, with grandly painted ceilings, gold and great views. It was interesting to see the mix of mythology and religion in the paintings around the place because the US doesn't really have anything to compare it to. Also, swords. That is all. Actually, that isn't quite true. We saw some dungeons and massive, fancy rooms and a place for an Important Council of People, among other things. Through one of the windows we saw what appeared to be some sort of gondola race or congregation. I am a little bummed I missed that but I guess palaces are pretty cool, right?
We didn't stay inside the palace as long as we thought we would, so we found a nearby bench and people watched for a little bit. Not wanting to waste the day though, we started wandering around the island that the important stuff is constructed on. Venice is made of 118 small islands, but I think we were on one of the larger ones because it took a while to get around to the other side. The farther we got from Saint Mark's and the palace, the less tourists and between that and the weather, it was extremely beautiful. I bought a few things at a souvenir shop and Katie realized she didn't need a jacket, so we meandered back to the hostel to drop off our things.
As always, it was Food Time so we stopped at a small pizza joint and got some deliciousness. I miss Italian food. (I'll stop about the food. I promise.) We were entertained by a mother trying to contain her son and his energy, but other than that, it was a rather uneventful meal. Let's get to the good stuff. (Gondolas!)
We traversed back to the tourist world that is Saint Mark's. We got in line for the basilica and it moved quite quickly. The Vatican should take notes. (I don't care about scale or logistics or whatever. I'm just sayin'.) Granted, this might also have to do with the fact that tourists can't take pictures so they actually have to pay attention. And people don't have great attention spans.
This was one of the my favorite churches because it was so....I don't even know. Words often fail me, but there is a legitimate reason here. My favorite story was how some crazy Venetians stole St. Mark's remains by hiding them in pork so the Muslim dudes from wherever-his-remains-used-to-be wouldn't look to closely. Now
that is genius. Genius. The basilica was kind of dark and mysterious and gold and solemn. Yes, solemn, that's the right word. More than any of the others (even St. Peter's), for me this one just held something amazing and indescribable. And that's not just because I get a little lax with descriptions. It just
was and exists in a way that hit me more than others. I don't know. It's late and I'm reliving feelings. So that's the best I can do to recapture it and I'm failing. So it goes.
As per usual, the afternoon called for gelato and sitting in St. Mark's
Overcrowded Square.This involved more kicking at pigeons and listening to some performers at outdoor restaurants and getting annoyed at people getting in my personal space. This was great although, after we sat down, I feared because my nemeses were perched right above me, waiting to poop on me. I am against pigeons, guys.
A brisk sit later and it was time for another great mode of transportation. Gondola! Although it was pretty expensive, the boat was plush and shnazzy and our guide was great. He talked about the city and himself and, like all stereotypes regarding gondoliers, sang in Italian to us. The ride was fantastic and I practiced my princess wave for when the peasants stared at us. The canals aren't as deep as I though they were, only three meters in most of them except the Grand Canal and other larger ones. Our gondolier was quite informative (The last building in Venice was constructed over a century ago. So the city has looked the same for at least one hundred years) and the trip was beautifully peaceful. Guys, go to Venice. Our ride didn't last nearly as long as I would've liked, but it was well worth the money we paid. There was nothing to do but snap a few pictures after the ride and then head on our way.
Katie and I then stopped at a small shop on our way to our hostel to grab a bright pink drink and hang out before dinner. We chatted and compared our favorite cities and parts of the trip, already trapped in nostalgia. We both agreed that Venice was one of our favorite places, despite hearing all about how dirty it was. Real talk now, guys. Venice is a dirty city. No doubt about it. But I don't think that takes away from anything really because there is so much beauty and it is such a surreal, magical place. Now I wouldn't want to go jump in a canal, but I would go back to that city a heartbeat. That is all.
We had been scouting out restaurants earlier and returned to one that was fairly close and seemed like a good atmosphere. It was my last real supper because airports don't count. At all. I bravely, (not really) tried a shrimp pasta with something called "rocket sauce" which is just a really wacky translation for a pesto sauce. I was really tempted to get desert there too, but I was running low on funds so we hit up a much more affordable gelateria after dinner. By that time though, it was raining because Venice was depressed to see us go. I just keep talking about how sad all the cities are to not think about the fact that, hey, maybe the weather was just crappy sometimes. Venice was sad.
We were freezing by the time we got are gelato, so we ate it inside. Some of us *raises hand* ate ours really slowly so we wouldn't have to face the cold wetness of the world quite so soon. Before long though, my ice cream was gone and cold was back. Le sigh. My last night ended on the sad note of packing for the next day. The worst.
So I'm thinking I will actually do one more post. It won't be particularly exciting but will cover these topics: Travel and adjusting to "real" life. We'll see how everything goes. Check back in a couple days and I will (at the very least) have some pictures up.
Possibly goodbye forever.
So I guess I did decide to do one final blog to sum up everything and explain the journey home. It was, to say the least, quite long. And I guess we can talk about me being home because that's also strange.
I have become quite familiar with the Madrid-Barajas Airport, so I had decided to sleep overnight there before my flight back to the States the next morning. Great plan (sarcasm hand raised). You may recall a couple of posts ago where I was going insane. That was the overnight-in-the-Madrid portion of the trip. I got an overpriced dinner and started looking for wi-fi to help pass the night. I could've paid for it but I was done with spending money so I wrote my new blog post. And read. And played free-cell. And hearts. Somewhere between three and four in the morning I decided that sleep was unimportant. Or something that stupid. I don't know what possessed me to stay up the entire night, but stay up the entire night I did. (Yoda.)
I eventually landed in Atlanta and went through customs and I got a stamp. I had been worried about this (customs, not the stamp), but I really shouldn't have been because I guess I made it through. I mean, I'm here. I began the more waiting in a place where everything was in ENGLISH. Whut.
