Now, not only does Italy not have toilet seats. They don't have toilets. Literally, there's a porcelain hole in the floor, but it has foot grips. Interesting. I have nothing else to say on the topic. You can use your imagination.

Just for reference, the hostels in southern Italy are more limited in what they give you for free. You have to pay for the internet and breakfast. And they tend to have lockouts and curfews (hence, when I ended up on the beach as mentioned in an earlier blog).

I spent all day at the beach in Cinque Terre yesterday. (Well, almost all day, I had to go to 3 towns to find an ATM with money, the guy informed me they only get filled on Tuesday and Thursday) It was so beautiful. It reminded me of summers at home. An observation: no one in Europe has tattoos or piercings. Anyway, I left the beach to get on the train to meet Matt for dinner, when I was suddenly distracted by a line of people waiting to get in somewhere. When I went to investigate, I found that the line went into a building. Still curious, I got in line. (just for curiosity, i promise) Amazing... the line led to a bar. Well, now I was stuck, as the line was only moving in one direction. So I was forced into ordering a fresh fruit pina colada. In fact, I mean the lady behind me informed me, "it's 5 o'clock somewhere."

Took the train to Genoa today. Sad to leave Cinque Terre, but it is a cloudy day, so it's good for traveling. Everyone in Europe is very helpful. We got on a bus to go to the hostel, but of course, the hostel just said get on the bus and get off when you see the hostel. No bus stop name or anything. This old man saw me searching and asked me if I was looking for the ostello (at this point, I'm pretty sure it means hostel or hotel). He didn't speak any English, but somehow we communicated. It was mostly pointing at my backpack and saying ostello, then pointing to me, looking out the window. Another guy on the bus was obviously looking for the hostel too, and he knew a little Italian. The old man knew where it was and told us to get off when we were at the right stop.

Not doing much (I mean it's Sunday :-) ). Planning to go get pizza for our last night in Italy. Tomorrow we take the ferry to Barcelona. It's an overnight ferry and our accommodation is a Pullman seat. I'm not really sure what that is, but it did say that we could sleep on the deck of the boat instead if we wanted. Haha I'm not expecting much.

The hosteling world is very small. We are starting to see the same people.