Birthday Weekend

First of all, thanks to everyone who sent me birthday greetings! I appreciate them all:).

Yet another great weekend... Thursday night we decided to finally check out the Spanish Steps pubcrawl (free on your birthday, which was nice) and it was a lot of fun. Most of the people in our program went along, and we were introduced to some new pubs and a cool club which was nice. Dan (whose birthday was earlier in the week) and I won a competition they set up there, so we felt pretty awesome about that. A nice way to ring in my 20th year... but 6 30 came too quickly the next morning.

We caught the 7 35 train out of Termini to La Spezia, from where we would take another train to Riomaggiore, where we were staying in Cinque Terre. Most of the boys couldn't get out of bed in the morning, so it was just Meghan, Carly, Kathryn, Kathleen, Dan and I in one compartment. Alyssa was on the train, but had gone ahead and we didn't know where she was. We were enjoying ourselves until the conductor came by to check our tickets and informed us that they were not validated. The tickets from the weekend before didn't require validation, and it wasn't something we thought about. Luckily he gave us a break and only charged 50 euro for the compartment, rather than per person, but it was still an unfortunate start.

Grabbed lunch in La Spezia and waited for Ben and Pete to catch up, then took the 8 minute train to Riomaggiore. Checked into our hostel, which was up some treacherous stairs but pretty nice and with an amazing view of Riomaggiore (pictured right). We immediately set out to the fifth town, Monterosso, where we set up shop on the beach and didn't leave for hours. When we did, the sun was setting and we were ready for dinner. Unfortunately Ben and I got sidetracked talking to a guy with a dog and could imitate a good Boston accent for an Italian, and we got split up from the group. We found some good photo ops as a result of it, and when we finally made it to the restaurant the pesto lasagna was spot on.

The food, wine, and sun foiled our plans to go out that night, considering that we wer all asleep on the train, but it made for a good night's sleep before our hike on Saturday. Well, at least for everyone except Aunt Meg (as we'll call her for differentiation purposes-- Erin's aunt is also studying in Rome and hangs out from time to time), Ben C., and Scott, who didn't leave Rome until 7 PM and not until 1:15 Saturday morning did I get a call saying they had made it to Riomaggiore. Ben slept on the hard marble at the foot of my bed until we left at 8. Hiking was amazing... nothing too challenging, but still some good exercise accompanied by gorgeous views and the occassional Limoncello or Prosecco when we felt so inclined. Spent some time in a vineyard singing songs from The Sound of Music, later the trail took us through an olive grove, and about four hours later we were in the fourth town of Vernazza. I recognized it as the place where I spent an afternoon with my youth group the last summer I lived in Holland, when I was 14, which obviously brought back fond memories for me.

We sampled some focaccia, for which the region is known, and hung out on the rocks for a few hours, until Meghan and I started thinking that if we were going to try to stay later than the original 6 PM departure time we had bought tickets for, we should make absolute sure they could be changed. It was 3, and the guy at the ticket booth said that not only was 6 the last train back to Rome, but that there was a problem on the line and we should think about getting to La Spezia ASAP. After waiting on the platform for a good 45 minutes, we decided to try to catch a boat back to Riomaggiore instead. What we thought was the last one pulled away the second we bought our tickets (4:20 at this point) and we began to realize our chances of making the 6 o'clock train were seriously diminishing. Somehow, right as we turned around, another boat pulled up, and we pushed through the crowd and made it on. As it sailed along the coastline we noticed something else: a train was also making its way towards Riomaggiore. We realized that could either be good and indicate that the trains were in fact running again, or be bad in that that might be one of the only trains to go out for awhile.

When we got off the boat we sprinted to the hostel, sprinted up our mountain of stairs, threw our belongings together, and sprinted to the train station leaving a stream of "Scusi!"s behind us as we dodged people. We noticed a swarm of people moving in our direction through the tunnel that led to the station and knew that meant that the train had arrived. We finished the last leg and approached the station just in time to hear the whistle blow and watch the train leave. After about 20 seconds of "No! No no no!"s and resigned laughter, we decided to check the schedule anyway. With the delay factored in, one was supposed to arrive in 15 minutes. Just enough time to grab a much needed beer from the cafeteria across the way and head to the platform. After talking to some guys from Temple, we realized that trains heading in both directions were using the same track, which equaled disaster in my opinion, but also helped explain the delays. Our delay increased by 5 more minutes, then 10, but at 5 45 lo and behold, the train to La Spezia rolled up.

We got to La Spezia with what we thought was 4 minutes to spare (9 when we realized that Meghan's clock was 5 minutes fast), and then the train to Rome got another 15 minute delay of its own. At 6 20 we were really on our way. Was that the end of our adventure? Of course not. As we got off the train 4 1/2 hours later the thought crossed my mind... "Does the metro still run this late?" The bars blocking the gate at the Termini station suggested otherwise. While nearly every bus runs through Termini at some point, after our last failed excursion on the night buses we were a little nervous. One of the drivers told us to get on the 170 to end up near San Paolo Basilica, but after 15 minutes on our bus when I asked our driver his "si... vicino..." wasn't so convincing. He dropped us off and issued a motion of his hand in the direction of the basilica, and we crossed our fingers and set out. By some miracle, that road turned into our street about 4 blocks down, and as we passed under the metro station we saw a train approach the platform. Go figure.

Slept soundly last night and have spent the day simply chilling out. I'm sure everyone who stayed enjoyed the rest of the weekend in Cinque Terre greatly, but I have to say I've been appreciating my day of relaxation. I'm in a bar across the street right now with Erin and Meghan having a macchiato and... I think I'm gonna get back to The Italians now. Ciao!

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