Not a post for the faint hearted: CINQUE TERRE

Sunday, September 14, 2008.

I apologize in advance for the length of this post. In the words of every Westminster teacher, "I have a lot of information to cover, and not enough time to cover it." So here goes...

Wednesday night we went to dinner for Elizabeth's birthday. It was a nice little restaurant on the other side of the Accadamia bridge. Our waiter was kinda cookey; instead of going around and asking everyone what they wanted, he went through the menu and asked everyone to raise their hand for the item they wanted... anyway... after that we went to the casino. We got all dressed up and walked the FORTY minutes it takes to get there, but it was a beautiful night! We had to give them our passport and they entered in all the information into the computer. I didnt realize that they were also trying to take my picture, so my picture that they now have on file for Elizabeth McKinley Kane is one where I am looking away and frowning... They require you to pay 10 euro to get in, but they give you a 10 euro chip when you enter. I waited a long time to invest my money, but after Rhianna made SEVENTY FIVE euro and Ana made 50, I thought I was destined to win. WRONG. The minimum bid was 10 e, so when I put mine down and lost it, I was finished. A few of the girls and I left early and headed back home because we had class the next am... whoops...

Thursday we had normal class (minus music because David lost a bunch of music that he needed for class. I hate it when they cancel class on me ;) ) but our Art History class had a visit as we do EVERY Thursday. We went to St. Marks Basilica. I had been outside to see it when Katie and Eli came, but we decided to be cheap and not actually enter. Good thing, because our teacher apparently has ALL the connections. We got in for free AND avoided the line. Once we were in there, she took us to all of the places where normally people have to pay to enter plus some places that people cannot enter at all! If you havent seen it, please google it, because it is AMAZING! The whole ceiling is mosaicked with GOLD LEAF tiles. I could go on and on, but I wont. Suffice it to say, it was beautiful and amazing.

We came directly back to the house after that because we were leaving for CINQUE TERRE!!! Side story:: As we were packing up final things, the house keepers were DEBUGGING our house. Im not kidding. Apparently, some people picked up FLEAS from a train and brought them back to the house. So while we were gone to Cinque Terre, the house was being exterminated... Back to my original story. Now, I didnt know anything about Cinque Terre before this weekend, so let me give you a little back ground. Cinque Terre is not actually a CITY, it is the collection of five towns (thus cinque-five terre-lands. If you care for more information, check this site). Anyway, we were going to the southern most of these five little towns, Riomaggiore. We booked 3 apartments because there were 17 of us going--16 house people plus our student adviser, Jenny. We had to check in before 8:00 pm but we were NEVER going to make it there with the train we had (15:43 because our class lasted until later than the previous train) so we had to send Jenny ahead. This meant that I, MCKINLEY KANE, was in charge with getting all 16 of the rest of us to Cinque Terre. Super. We had to go from Venice to Bologna to La Spezia to Riomaggiore. Luckily, everything went according to plan. Our La Spezia to Riomaggiore train was a tight connection, but we ran and made it! I was laughing THE WHOLE TIME, though, at the image of 16 college students running with luggage across the La Spezia train station. A random guy on the train told us we wouldn't need tickets. I was meant to simply ask him if he was positive about this and asked him, "Are you the conductor?" Apparently, though, it came out like I was trying to put him in his place by saying, "Are YOU the conductor?!" as in, what kind of authority do you have to say this? Everyone laughed at me, story of my life...

We got to Riomaggiore late Thursday night and met Jenny. I couldnt really see anything because it was dark, but I could tell that the town was SO cute! It was on the coast and went, LITERALLY, directly up. AKA lots and lots of stairs. Everyone got settled into their apartments and we met up for a VERY late dinner.

Friday morning, Kayla, Jenny, Elizabeth and I got up semi-early and went down to the little town for breakfast. I had the most wonderful chocolate brioche ever. We then met up with some other people in our group and around 100:00 am began one of the most STRENUOUS experiences of my life. The five towns of Cinque Terre are connected by a hiking trial--an eight mile, hilly, stair ridden, dirt/slippery rock path. It started out nice and easy with a paved path and an overcast sky, but by the time we were in the fifth town, it was HOT and there were switchbacks with stairs etc. I wanted to curl up in the shade and take a nap. We finally got back to our room around 5:00 pm. It was an amazing hike once we were done and absolutely worth the sore EVERYTHING I had the next day. I have so many pictures of it, so PLEASE look at them!

We met up with the group again for dinner and ran into some Auburn guys (one of whom was from Lassiter High School!!) who wanted to hang out with us. Dont worry--we were tooooo good for them :) We were hanging out after dinner, when Ana and Rhianna called (they went back to the fifth city for dinner) and told us that there was a train strike. Yes, that is right, a TRAIN STRIKE... So that meant that Ana and Rhianna were stuck in Monterosso until the train strike ended and the panic began because we were supposed to leave Saturday afternoon around 4:00. We decided to get to sleep and get up early the next morning to figure out what was going on and what we needed to do.

So....Jenny, Elizabeth, Kayla and I got up and went to the train station. They told us that there was a train leaving for La Spezia in about 4 minutes, and then ONE LAST one for the day leaving in an hour. It was maybe 8:30 at that point and no one else was up. We had to get everyone up, packed up, and apartments cleaned in an hour. Mission Possible? I thought not. But we did it. We crammed onto the train to La Spezia. Once to La Spezia, we had to sit around and wait in LINE AFTER LINE to figure out how to get back to Venice. After an hour or so we decided that our best bet was to go from La Spezia to Pisa to Florence to Venice because that way we could use the tickets we already purchased (we were supposed to go from La Spezia to Viarregio to Florence to Venice) and those trains were among the few confirmed. So we went to Pisa and got to see the tower!!! There really isn't much in Pisa besides the tower, so it was nice that we no longer had to waste a trip there! I also bought some pink sunglasses from a street vendor while we were there! After seeing the tower, we still had a few hours before our Florence train, so we stopped off at a pizza place where we met the SKETCHIEST waiter ever. We finally escaped from that back to the train station and got on our train. The trains from Pisa to Florence and Florence to Venice were uneventful except that we essentially LAUGHED the whole time. I think this group of people just has too much fun with each other! Good thing there is no such thing as too much fun!

When we got back to Venice, our lovely city decided to greet us with rainy and cold weather. Thanks, Venice. We took the Vaparetto back to the house because we were so exhausted. It took us over 12 hours to get home!! I showered, hopped into my newly debugged bed, and was asleep within 15 minutes.

SO that was my weekend. Thank you for reading the whole thing (if you even did...) Please look at my pictures! They are really fun and beautiful!
xoxo
mckin