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This weekend was absolutely beyond amazing! I had high expectations for Cinque Terre, and reality blew anything I could have imagined out of the water. I also crossed so many things off of my bucket list it's unreal.
We left our appartment at 6am in order to make it to our train on time. We had a three-hour train ride to CT. I was pleasantly surprised by the European train system. The seats were padded with tables in between, almost like four person booths all around. I was so happy to see this after our plane experience getting here! Upon arrival at the main station, La Spezia Centrale, we had to then take a 7-minute connector train ride to Riomagiorre, which is the first of the 5 towns and was where we were staying. We checked into the hostel, only to find out we would have to climb hundreds of stairs to get to our rooms. This wouldn't have been too bad if the entire city wasn't already on a 60 degree incline! We dropped off our stuff then went back down to the town to have lunch. After lunch we decided to go down to the shore and hang out and swim. The one thing I wanted to do in CT was cliff jump, so I took that opportunity while I had it. I jumped from a cliff about 35 feet above the water, and plunged into the crystal-clear, unbelievably blue water of the Mediterranean. It was the most terrifying yet liberating thing I've ever done! After we were done at the shore we went on a hike. We were going to go on the shortest hike, from Riomaggiore to town number 2, Manarola (~25 minutes) but both this path and the path from Manarola to Carneglia (town number 3) were closed, so we took a train to Carnegliaa nd hiked from there to town number 4, Vernazza. The hike took about 2 1/2 hours, and the sights were absolutely breathtaking! The town of Vernazza was also amazing, probably my favorite of the 5 towns. After the hike we had a quick dinner than ran to the train station to catch our train back to Riomaggiore. As the train came, we noticed it had the wrong destination on it, so we thought it was the wrong train and did not get on. Turns out it was the right train and we now had to wait an hour to catch the next one. So, we went back down to town and got some yummy gelato then waited for the next train back to Riomaggiore. We went home, showered, then headed out to explore the nightlife of CT. We didn't last long, though, because we were all exhausted from the day's activities. We headed home and went to bed to be ready for our 10am check out time in the morning. When we woke up, we grabbed breakfast at a cafe across the way. Luckily, the hostel let us store our bags with them so we could make the most of our day without carrying our luggage around! We got a boat pass which let us travel between the 5 towns freely with the most magnificent view possible. We first went to Monterosso, the fifth town. We explored and shopped around for a bit (I had the hardest time finding my must-have soivineer t-shirt!), then our group split in two -- some girls wanted to stay in Monterosso and head to the beach, and others wanted to see our last unseen town, Manarola. Since I live by the beach at home, I went and explored Manarola. We had seafood for lunch, because how could we be in a bunch of harbor towns without having local seafood! My plate consisted of local lobster, calamari, shrimp, bati bati, and white fish. It was slightly different than what I expected and a tad out of my comfort zone, but I tried it all and it was actually pretty good! We then had to rush back to the boat to go pick up our things in Riomaggiore then train back to La Spezia Centrale. Of course, when were in a rush, the boat is late, then as we pull out to sea, it decided to make a 180 and go back to dock in Manarola to pick up more people. We missed our train, but luckily there was one 50 minutes later. We arrived to La Spezia Centrale with literally 3 minutes to spare to make it to our train back to Rome, but we made it! What an exciting, action-packed trip it was!
I also learned quite a bit this weekend about life in Italy and its culture: 1- my Italian is definitely getting better, because I've begun to catch myself speaking engtalian in normal conversation. 2- Italians do not understand the term PDA, because they have no shame in publicly displaying affection. Everywhere. 3- Men dress more indecently than women do, except when it comes to swimwear, then they're tied. Women wear teeny tiny bottoms, many are thong-cut, and some enjoy going topless and it's not abnormal. Men wear speedo bathing suits, and if it's not a speedo, it's brief-cut spandex shorts that keep nothing to the imagination. Definitely not like the USA. 4- European train travel is awesome and easy. If I ever come back I'm doing that some more. 5- I'm officially in love with Italy and I never want to leave!!
I uploaded all my pictures from this weekend already (sorry there's so many! Not really) I'm learning more and more every day how to use my camera better so a lot of these pictures turned out really cool! Check them out if you have the time! One girl with us has an underwater camera and took pictures and video of my cliff jump. When I get those from her I will post them too!
It's been a long weekend and after this lost post I think it might be time to catch up on sleep. Thanks if you took the time to read the whole thing!
Tomorrow we tour the colosseum -- I can't wait!
Buonanotte, a domani!
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