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The next wednesday we had to wake up suuuuuper early because we were going to Cinque Terre! We had to leave our apartment at 4:50 am and I couldn't fall asleep till 2 am because I was too excited, so I basically got no sleep at all haha. It was going to be a long couple of days.
We were able to get some vans to take us to the Roma Termini station which is SUPER far from us and then we hopped on a 4 hour train to Cinque Terre. Naturally I slept the whole way, or at least tried to. Around 10 am we arrived! We then had to take another train to one of the towns, and had to pay to enter because it's considered a national park.
Even though I had been here before I was really excited to go hiking again. We first started out at one of the towns and immediately I was sweating from going up and down the tiny stairs. I can't believe people live there, there would be no way to carry a bed or anything big. The people who live there must have really strong legs if they're walking up and down the stairs all the time. To clarify, cinque terre is an area that has around 5 towns right on the northern left coast of Italy. The towns are bult into the mountainside and you can hike along the mountain right next to the sea. In our first town we went straight to the rocks to jump off. It was only 30 feet but it still seemed pretty high. I jumped twice and it felt so good to be in water. The water is soooo pretty. Pure blue and it was so refreshing. After we were done we hiked for about an hour until the next town. The views there are amazing, nothing like I've ever seen before, and every time you turn the corner there is another jaw dropping view. So cool. Once we got to the next town we stopped for a bit because there was another area to swim. It was really cool because it was a little cove and there were rocks surrounding it that you could jump off of. It was so funny because I could actually remember this exact town from last time, and we had jumped off there too! After we swam for a bit, we went down the hiking path a little bit to the area where Tom said there was an 80 ft. jump that you could do if you wanted. I had been thinking about it, but wasn't really sure, 80 ft. is pretty high up. However, I've done some cliff jumping before and I had a feeling that I could pull it off, so I decided to do it! It was amazing and such a rush. It was also one of the hardest things I've ever done, surprisingly. I was so proud of myself after, and so proud that I made myself do it. When you jump that high off, it's more than just jumping. You hit the water so hard and so fast you have to make sure that you start with your arms out so you stay balanced and then before you hit, you have to bring everything in and even point your toes. Your arms have to be locked at your side and your legs locked together. One of the girls in our group went and lost control before she entered the water and actually broke her wrist because her arm was extended. A couple more girls who went got some pretty bad bruises because their legs were a little bit spread apart. So it was a pretty serious jump! I was pretty sore a couple days after, but luckily no bruises It was one of the most amazing things I've ever done.
After the jump, and while I was still shaking from the excitement, we walked back into town to decide what we wanted to do. While we were waiting for some girls to catch up, Edwin saw a huge rope attached from one balcony to the other and decided to pick it up and shake it so it snaked out over and over again. I don't know why it was funny but it was and we all were laughing so hard and started yelling "babo americano, babo americano" which means stupid american in italian because it's just another one of our long list of jokes within the group. All the tourists were looking at us like we were crazy however, we're pretty used to that now so we just embrace it haha. To save some time, we then took the train that runs through all the towns to go to another one so we could hang out there for awhile and then do some serious hiking. When we got to the town we all got this pesto pizza which was AMAZING and then I got a strawberry daquiri and layed out on some rocks overlooking the mediterranean. It was pretty amazing. I was genuinely happy and I started realizing that I've had so many of these moments here and I'm so lucky to be in such an amazing place. I was already so exhausted from the day and from the 80 ft. jump I had just mastered so I layed there for a couple hours until we had to go. We then had the choice to do a serious hike, or we could take the train to the last town we were going to. I decided to do the hike since I hadn't done it before because the town I was currently in was the last town we stopped at last time I was there. 5 minutes into the hike, I was dying. The start of the hike was the hardest part since it was straight uphill and the steps were as big as me. We were literally climbing up the side of the mountain in 30 min. Once we got to the top we had an amazing view of the town we were just in. The blog picture is all of us at that spot. After that, it wasn't too bad and I was happy to be hiking again because it's one of my favorite things to do. The views were even more amazing on this hike, and I felt bad for the people who decided to take the train because they were seriously missing out.
After about an hour and a half we got to our final town. I had never been to this one before so it was a nice surprise. We all ran into the sea the second we got there because we were so sweaty from the hike. We then changed into some clothes since the sea had made our other ones sooooo salty and dry. Since we didn't have anywhere to change we had to change in public. It was really funny to see 15 girls trying to change with towels wrapped around them in the middle of the beach. I felt homeless and like a gypsy. After that we all split off to find some food and while some other girls went to get american, emily, kate, ashlee and me went looking around for something else. We finally found this restaurant off the beaten path and with our skills at detecting whether or not a restaurant is a rip off, we decided this one looked good. I got pasta with salmon and it was amazing.
After the dinner we met up with everyone else and walked around. It was soooo pretty. Cinque terre is probably my favorite place ever. It's so peaceful and perfect. After awhile, I was getting super exhausted so we found everyone else and sat on the pier. Our train wasn't until 1 am because we wanted to get the cheaper one so we had to hang out for awhile. Being me, I forgot a jacket and didn't realize it would get cold at night so I sat there in my t- shirt and shorts, freezing and tired. I had the most amazing day, but I couldn't wait to get to my bed. It was finally time to go so we hopped on the train to get to the main train station to wait another 2 hours for the main train back to Rome .
Finally, after 7 games of tiny wings the train came. Edgar had told us earlier in the day that this can be a sketchy train because it's so late at night, it's the cheapest train and the final destination is Naples which is a pretty scary city so to stay warned. I had no idea what I was in for. The second we got on the train I didn't like it. It was split up into rooms and each room had 6 seats. (kind of like the hogwarts train except a lot dirtier) I didn't think it was going to be too packed, but it WAS. I could barely move I was surrounded by so many people. And all of our assigned seats were taken up by people. We had to wake up so many different people and kick them out of our seats. However, none of them spoke English so it was a pretty difficult task and they were all pissed off in the end. Thank god Tom was there because they would not have paid attention to us girls. I was very fortunate to end up in a room with all people from my group because other people in our group had to share rooms with random people because they wouldn't move for them. I was honestly scared for them. We were able to put our stuff up above us, but everyone else that shared a room held onto their stuff in their arms. It was so packed that the tiny seats in the hallway outside of the rooms were even taken up by people. The girls in my room were crafty and pulled out the seats to make a kind of bed and we were able to lay out and I was actually able to sleep despite how scared I was. We finally arrived in Rome at 6 am only to go back to our apartment and NOT sleep because I had class at 10 am and had to pack for Amsterdam. I was running on 0%, but as I was about to find out I wasn't going to Amsterdam that day so I got to sleep in the afternoon. It was definitely worth the lack of sleep though because cinque terre was one of my favorite days in all the 6 weeks of being here.
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