Getting To Madrid

I finally did it. I finally took my first weekend trip outside of Italy... I went to Madrid.

Which is kind of funny considering Spain was not on my original list of places I wanted to visit. I had no intentions of going there until two weeks ago when Bethany and Caitlin decided they were going and asked if anyone wanted to join.

Because I took four years of Spanish in high school and because my favorite Spanish teacher Sra. Taylor talked a lot in class about how beautiful Madrid is, I decided to go.

But I haven't decided yet how I felt about it.

Don't get me wrong. Madrid is very possibly the most beautiful city I've ever seen. There is so much to see and do. It's like a cleaner, Spanish-speaking version of New York City (at least I think it is - I've never been to the Big Apple) and I would never in a million years persuade anyone against it.

But some of the things that happened in Madrid tainted the whole trip. So let's begin at the beginning. This will take two posts.

Day One: Thursday. Bethany, Caitlin and I skipped class to take a train to the Pisa airport just after 11 a.m. This was my first time on an airplane since our transatlantic voyage in January and I totally forgot about the no-liquids-over-eight-ounces-rule. So when my brand new bottle of body wash got confiscated at the x-ray machines, that was insult to injury. The latex-gloved woman at the scanner held my bottle at arm's length and asked me if it was okay that she was going to throw this unopened bottle away and if I understood why this was necessary.

"I mean, I guess it has to be," I said. "Do I have any other options?"

"I can escort you from Pisa and return this bottle to you from a safe location. Would you prefer that?"

"I mean, not really. I'd rather not."

"So you understand that I am going to dispose of this contraband?"

"Yes."

"I am disposing of this."

"Cool. Great. Nice talking to you."

This came roughly ten minutes after I paid a €65 boarding fee because RyanAir didn't believe me when I told them my online boarding pass would not print. Even though I had the receipt. The woman at the ticket counter was pretty unpleasant about the whole thing and acted like I was an idiot who made the mistake of not having a working link to print my boarding pass. Cool. Grazie. Nice talking to you.

By the time we got through security at Pisa and into the line for the plane to Madrid, I was steaming. Some woman standing in line behind me patted my overstuffed backpack and asked in Italian if I had a puppy in it. I yanked my backpack away from her and moved it to the front of my body where I could keep an eye on it. This crazy, flamingo-pantsed senior citizen probably wanted to steal my puppy/money/clothes/journal/Italian One book. I was kind of in a xenophobic mood by now. I stared her down and didn't answer while Caitlin and Bethany snickered into their sleeves. Finally this woman with the wild pants turned to her equally Q-Tip-haired friend and began complaining about me in Italian. I know she was complaining because she sounded affronted and kept saying "Americani" and "ragazzi."

When we finally got through the line, we had to get in a shuttle bus to ride down the tarmac to our plane. Which was highly therapeutic for me because such an endeavor is a no-holds-barred free for all in Italy. The gates open and you have to kick and trip and elbow and claw your way through the throng to get in the shuttle before it leaves and you miss your flight. It's cutthroat.

So I threw some people down and jumped on the shuttle for the roughly one minute ride to the plane. Once on the plane, we didn't have assigned seats, so the three of us had to climb over other passengers and fight our way to the first trio of seats we could find.

At last, we sat down and I listened to music until I began to hate RyanAir a little less. The rest of the two hour plane ride was uneventful, until the last half hour or so when I got plane sick. With Ticket Counter/Body Washgate preoccupying my immediate attention, I completely forget to take my motion sickness pills. Lovely.

So I stared straight ahead, willing myself not to be airsick while the plane rocked and boogied its way through major turbulence and a bumpy landing. When the plane finally landed and the doors finally opened, I physically climbed over an entire camera-happy Asian family to be one of the first people on solid ground, where I promptly fell on my knees and kissed Spanish blacktop.

Welcome to Madrid.

Caitlin and Bethany eventually made their way off the plane and met me in the airport cafe where I was nursing a ginger ale. They got sandwiches and I tried to remember how to breathe without losing my lasagna. Cool. Bravo.

By the time I was ready to walk in a straight line, the girls were ready to hop the metro to Gran Via and find our hostel.

The metro was another adventure in throwing 'bows and breaking noses, but we got on without any problem and made it to Gran Via just before 6 p.m.

Gran Via Madrid looks like Times Square. Our United World International Hostel was located between Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts and across from a gigantic theatre advertising "Grease" the musical on its luminescent marquee. Two doors down from Dunkin, another theatre advertised "El Rey Leon" the musical. Seeing those skinny antelope guys and creepy mechanical baby Simba on the flyers outside really made me want to shell out the Euros.

But I refrained. Instead I settled for the next best place on the street: United World of Are These Really the Only Bathrooms In This Whole International Hostel.

The hostel was situated in what clearly used to be a very nice, upscale apartment complex. We're talking East Egg, but after it's been fried. What used to be super swanky, I'm sure, was now swank buried under layers of "What did you expect for the cheapest hostel in Spain?"

We made our way up to el tercero piso and rang to doorbell to check-in. We were greeted by a young woman who was obviously very upset that she had to interrupt her Facebook time to check-in some spoiled American tourists. She handed us room agreements with an expression not unlike what prison wardens probably wear upon ushering in new inmates.

While we read through the paperwork ("You can rent a towel for €2 and place one phone call to the outside world"), Nurse Ratched handed out keys for us to get in the front door and green wristbands for us to wear all weekend. As we followed her down the lone hallway to our room (appropriately labeled "America" with a hand-drawing of Mount Rushmore sketched over the water-damaged eggshell paint), we saw several of our fellow lodgers sporting their neon bands. It was like entering the world's most depressing amusement park.

To my surprise, our room was not bad. It was painted pink with flowery white curtains and three pairs of bunk beds jammed together along the walls. Each of the top three bunks were graced with a folded piece of paper, one of our three names printed on each paper.

I got bed #1, decorated with flowery green sheets that I actually really liked. Laying in bed that first night, I came to the conclusion that this sleeping arrangement was in fact much more comfortable than most of the Workcamps I've been on. So that was good.

What was not so great was the fact that there were 36 people in the hostel and only two bathrooms. Each bathroom had one toilet, one sink and one shower. I showered once the whole weekend and it was in the middle of the day Saturday. I showered in pitch-darkness because there was no window and the motion-sensitive lights could not detect me in the shower unless I leaned all the way out and waved my arms. Just another way Workcamp has prepared me for college.

Moving on...

As we surveyed our surroundings, the door opened and two of our roommates - Ashley and Kylee - came in. We lucked out this weekend with roommates. Ashley and Kylee left Friday afternoon, but we talked for a long time Thursday night. The pair are sisters from Australia who have been backpacking Europe together since October. They had been in Madrid all week and recommended some sights for us to see.

We talked to these two until almost 9 p.m. when we left to find dinner. Bethany had heard of an area with great tapas, but we couldn't find it, so we settled for a little bar we found a little way from Plaza Mayor where all the food was fried. We split fried cheese topped with jam for an appetizer. Caitlin and I shared fried mushrooms with ham and Bethany had fried calamari. Then we had cake and ice cream (not fried) for dessert because we had barely eaten all day.

By the time we got out of dinner, it was nearly midnight, so we went back to the hostel (our third roommate, a guy who said nothing but "hello" in heavily-accented English, was sitting in bed doing math problems by flashlight while the Australians slept) and went to bed.

Worry not though. Our weekend improved considerably after only a few meltdowns Thursday. All for one giant problem that kind of tainted the whole weekend...

Because this weekend was too much for one post, I now present to you The Rest Of My Weekend In Madrid. Enjoy.

Halfway Equals Sad Day

Another month over. Another month closer to that thing I've been trying hard not to think about lately...

As much as I hate to do it, here's my updated to-do list of what I've accomplished so far this semester and what I still have to do before I have to say good-bye to bella Italia in May.

The original list from December 16 can be found here and the first update from February 8 is right over here.

• Go to Croatia.   *Booked.
• Go to Germany.   *I definitely don't have the time or money for this.
• Go to Ireland.   *Again, it looks like I can't afford this.
• Go to any other country I can go to.   *Greece and Madrid are booked.
• Get a touristy photo of me holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
• Eat authentic Italian pasta.
• Drink authentic Italian wine.
• Take a Beatles tour of Liverpool.   *In the planning stages.
• Get a photo of me crossing Abbey Road.   *Planning.
• Take a Harry Potter tour of England.   *Part of the Liverpool trip.
• Get a photo of me at Platform 9 3/4.   *THIS IS HAPPENING.
• Strike up a conversation with a local.
• Try to read an Italian newspaper.
• Spend a day just people watching.
• Follow a road just to see where it goes.
• Visit all of the major Italian cities.   *Not happening. There are more than I thought. But Florence, Rome, Assisi, Venice, Milan, Sienna, and Orvieto are checked off.
• Visit Dante Alighieri's house.   
• Swim in the ocean.
• Actually see an ocean.   *Hello, Cinque Terre.
• Stay in a hostel.   *Doing it tonight in Madrid.
• Attend an Italian youth group with Jess and Katy.
• Go to an Easter service in a church older than the United States.
• Appreciate the fact that I can be in anything older than the United States.
• Get lost without panicking.
• Do something 100% spur-of-the-moment.
• Grocery shop in an open-air market.
• Make one purely selfish and frivolous purchase.   *I'm going to call going to Madrid my frivolous/selfish purpose since it wasn't on my original list of places to go and the sales here are over, which means I can no longer afford a leather jacket.
• Hang my laundry out to dry over the street.   *Not legal in my neighborhood.
• Watch the local news.
• Learn about international communications (duh).   
• Learn at least enough Italian to get by.   
• Learn about art.   *"We call this an... en- ... tab- ... lature. Come on guys. You know this." Rocky is a trip.
• Live out of a backpack for a weekend.   *Rome, Assisi, Orvieto, and Madrid!
• Go to a pub.   
• Take more photos than I know what to do with.   *For real.
• Blog every (?) day.   *Like I said last month, I have failed at this. But at least I keep up with this blog.
• Remember to keep my feet off the frescoes.   *So far, so good.

Unfortunately, it seems I didn't dream very big with this list since it's basically all checked off. Also, from where I sit now, it seems my goals have changed quite a bit since I'm booking trips I never intended to take and skipping over places I had wanted to go. In the case of Germany, other opportunities have come up in the past two months that just seem more appealing to me. In the case of Ireland, I still really want to go, but it would be my most expensive weekend trip and I have no one to go with since no one can really afford it.

I'll have to go when I'm older and Mom can come with me. 

Busy In A Good Way

This week has been busier than usual, but mostly in a good way. It's midterm week, so I had studying to do for Fabio's Intercultural Communications exam Tuesday and Francesca's Comparative Media exam Wednesday. Gloria's Italian midterm is next week since the business majors have been in Geneva, Switzerland all week for a conference. Rocky's Art midterm is also next week because he's Rocky and he's an internationally known art historian and he's starred in the History Channel's Engineering An Empire and he's from Rhode Island and married to a French model so he does whatever he wants.

"En-TAB-La-ture."

Just ignore that.

Monday evening the school hosted a screening of the movie La Vita é Bella, starring Roberto Benigni. You may have heard of it because it won three Oscars in 1999, but I had never heard of it. And apparently no one else had because only four of us came to watch it. But I'm so glad I made the trip across town in the rain to see this movie because it is one of my new favorites. It is so, so good! I don't want to give anything away, but if you haven't seen it, do so. It's hilarious, it's super depressing and it's an all-around excellent movie. And I'm not being paid to say that.


Tuesday was another fun night out. The school offered a trip to St. Mark's Opera for a performance of La Boheme. That was interesting, but I loved it. First, it was an opera, which is not an artform with which I am particularly familiar. Secondly, it was in Italian, which is not a language with which I am particularly familiar. But it worked out. And English narrator explained each scene before they acted it out, so the story was easy to follow. Also, I've seen Rent, which was based on La Boheme, so that gave me another advantage. If you haven't seen this one, it too is super depressing, but not at all funny. 


Today I went to lunch with Katy again between class and caught up with her since it's been a few weeks since we got together. After that, it was class with Fabrizio where we watched a History Channel special on the Medicis, starring our one-and-only Director Marcello Fantoni. We are surrounded by celebrities every day in Palazzo dei Cerchi.


After class, Lydia and I walked down to the Arno where we laid out until dusk, then got gelato. 


That's about it for this week. I have to pack now for a weekend in Madrid with Caitlin and Bethany. We have a flight out of Pisa tomorrow at 1 p.m., so we'll have to leave home by 11. I'm really looking forward to this being my first trip outside Italy. It was a very spur of the moment decision (Bethany said, "Hey, me and Caitlin are going to Madrid next week. Want to come with?" And I immediately said, "Why not?"), but I've been getting more and more excited as this weekend approaches. I won't have my laptop with me, but there will be lots of photos on Facebook Sunday and you'll be able to read all about it right here by Monday or Tuesday. So check back soon and often! 

Love you all and talk to you when I'm back in bella Italia. I hope my high school Spanish doesn't fail me this weekend... Puedo ir al baño, por favor?

The Five Lands

I have a new Favorite Place In The World. It's the islands of Cinque Terre, Italy.

After spending the Friday in Milan, Bethany and I turned around and woke up at 7 yesterday morning to catch the first of two trains to Cinque Terre. We took our first train to La Speza, where we caught a second train to Corniglia Island in the Cinque Terre.

Our two thankfully uneventful rides got us to Corniglia just after 1:00. But before I move on, I should probably amend the "uneventful" part and add in when I cried on the train.

No. Really. I cried. We were nearly to Corniglia when I asked Bethany when she thought we might get our first view of the ocean. At this time, we had been in a tunnel for the past few minutes and, no sooner were the words out of my mouth, than the train emerged from the tunnel and I looked to my left to see nothing but wide ocean (okay... wide sea; it was the Ligurian Sea). All I could see up, down, out, and around in any direction was sparkling, diamond sea. And I cried.

Well, to be perfectly accurate, first I screamed and jumped out of my seat. Then I cried for about thirty seconds. Lee Ann Womack sang in my ear and I got really emotional over seeing so much beautiful water in one place. I'm not proud of it, but Bethany spread it around to everyone we associate with in Florence, so now the whole school knows I cried upon seeing the sea in Cinque Terre. And now you do, too. There are more embarrassing things that could happen.

Luckily, we were only a few minutes from Corniglia at the point where I lost my head and I was able to pull myself together before we got off the train.

It's good that the islands in Cinque Terre aren't too big. It didn't take much for Bethany and me to find our hostel after getting off the train in Corniglia. We had a very long hike in the sun (it was warm Saturday) to the top of the hill our Bed and Breakfast was on, but after that we followed my Rick Steve's map to the neighborhood of the B&B.

Finding the neighborhood was no problem, but navigating it was a challenge. There's this thing they love in Italy where they change street names halfway down the street. So Bethany and I literally walked in a square, then a smaller square, then a smaller square looking for the B&B. It turns out the street we were on kind of goes like this:

Here you are on Via A. Walk ten feet to Via B. Walk fourteen feet to Via C. Turn left at Via A. Walk four feet to Via D. Turn left on Via C. Walk 200 feet to Via A. Turn right on Via A. Turn left on Via B. Walk two feet to Via A.

You have now reached your destination.

Whaaatever. The good news is, we made it, and Corniglia is so incredibly gorgeous that we didn't really mind all of the retracing our steps over and over.

We got to the B&B about an hour before our scheduled check-in time and the door was locked and no one was home. By this point we were ready for lunch, so we walked back to a little cafe we had seen on the next street over and ordered pesto lasagna with fresh-squeezed lemon juice. The lemon juice was fantastic, but the lasagna tasted like leftovers. It probably was, too, since we watched the guy pull it out of the microwave. It wasn't bad thought, and we left lunch only a few minutes before our scheduled check-in time.

There was no need to rush though, since we sat for fifteen minutes outside the B&B and no one came for us. Bethany finally called the number on the sign outside the door and a woman told her someone would be there for us in a few minutes, then hung up. So we waited another twenty minutes until we heard huffing and puffing from the alley next to the B&B. An old man clutching a set of keys in one hand and the stitch in his side in the other hand came around the corner and walked past Bethany, directly up to me. He then proceded, amid all of the coughing and wheezing, to spit a whole bunch of Italian at me while I stood there presumably looking like an idiot.

Since Bethany speaks more Italian than I do, I kept looking at her over the guy's shoulder for help, but he ignored me and kept talking, despite my repeated "I don't speak Italian."

Bethany finally got the guy's attention and was able to explain to him that we had a reservation and needed let into our room.

It took awhile for him to figure out why we were there, and then twice as long for him to get up the stairs, but the guy finally showed us to our room. And fortunately, this B&B was very nice. There was a common dining room with two bedrooms leading off of it - one for me and Bethany, and one for another pair of guests. As soon as we were in the room, the guy handed me the keys and shuffled off without another word.

"When do we pay?" Bethany asked, but the guy just looked at her, then kept going. Whatever. If we paid, we paid. If not, if not, I guess.

We took a few minutes to unwind and admire our fantastic sea view, then set off to explore.

Our first adventure was supposed to be hiking the trail from Corniglia to Manarola, but about twenty minutes down the trail, we discovered that a landslide had made the trail impassible. We were both upset about this since it was a gorgeous walk and we had both really been enjoying it until that point. Instead, we walked back to Corniglia and hopped a train to Riomaggiore.

The highlight of Riomaggiore is the famous Via dell'Amore walkway. The walk takes you on a scenic tour around a hillside overhanging the sea. Along the way, we saw many ribbons and locks attached to the netting holding the cliff together. Many of these tokens featured the names of those who had left them encircled with hearts, just like the locks hanging around Ponte Vecchio on the Arno.

After a little way, you had the option of continuing along the marked trail, or descending into more treacherous trails down along the sea. Bethany and I picked one of these trails and very carefully climbed and scooted our way down to sea level, where we sat inches from the crashing waves until we were ready to move on.

Once we resurfaced on the trail, we found it lead into a sort of tunnel with many windows overlooking the sea. Inside this cave/tunnel, the locks turned into love graffiti. Thousands of couples had scrawled their names inside hearts and left little love notes to each other. Bethany and I even discovered a Kent State Florence heart on one wall, and added our names to the list of our classmates.

It took us a long time to finished the Via dell'Amore because we kept stopping to read all of the notes and Bethany stopped to make a heart for her and Alex and take photos with it. By the time we got out of the Love Walk, we were both ready for dinner.

I consulted with Rick Steve's, and he told me the best island to go to for dinner and nightlife was Vernazza (which Bethany and I prefer to pronounce Ver-NAHT-za). As soon as we stepped off the train, we realized we had made a mistake in going to Vernazza. We had seen a sign in the train station warning that Vernazza was mainly shut down to a devastating mudslide in October 2011, but we had no idea until we got there how bad it really was. The first thing I thought of when I got off that train was the day my church youth group toured the Ninth Ward in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Total devastation. You could see the water level lines on all of the abandoned homes and shops. Every building we passed was caked in mud and gutted. Shopvacs sat in the streets, some humming and some abandoned. Every once in a while, we would pass a small group of men shoveling mud out of a doorway or hauling sandbags into or out of the island. Nothing was open. There was no nightlife and not a single place to eat. I doubt we saw more than ten people the whole time we were there. A few stray dogs and cats were still hanging around, but they were all dirty and ran away from us. We didn't hear any signs of life.

Bethany and I finally made our way to the harbor as night fell over the Vernazza ghost town. We sat on a rock and let the waves wash up to where they nearly touched our toes. We were the only two people in sight. We sat in silence and stared out over the endless water as dusk turned into night and the air turned chilly. Despite the devastation behind us, I have only known a few places in my life that come close to matching the perfect serenity of that rock in that harbor. I could have sat there forever and been overwhelmingly at ease and content, except that Bethany and I both began getting hungry.

Reluctantly, we pulled ourselves away from the water long after sunset and picked our way through the rubble and back to the train station.

We decided to head instead to Manarola and try to find food there. We lucked out in finding a main street leading down into the ocean that had many quaint giftshops and promising-looking restaurants. Rick Steves recommended we get dinner at a restaurant on this main strip called Trattoria Il Porticciolo, so that's exactly what we did. And boy were we lucky Vernazza had been closed.

We sat in a heated outdoor room looking down the street toward the water. A handsome waiter brought us endless bread with baby green tomatoes and olive oil to munch on while we waited for our main courses. Bethany got lobster (batti batti) ravioli and I got spaghetti batti batti, spaghetti drenched in red sauce mixed with little bits of lobster and served with a giant lobster tail on the side. It was THE BEST spaghetti I have ever had. We were so happy with our meals, and the waiter was so cute and sweet, that we decided to go all out and order dessert as well. Our waiter let us each pick which kind of cake we wanted from a dessert display, then he brought us each a slice of both selected cakes, garnished with fruit, whipped cream, and chocolate candies.

It was the most exciting dessert I've ever seen. There was also a note in the Rick Steve's book that said if we showed the book, we could each get a free glass of sciacchetra dessert wine. Also some of the best wine I've ever had. This was my first dessert wine, and it was so smooth and rich, it was absolutely delicious. Even Bethany was won over and she had hesitated to get it since she isn't normally a fan of dessert wines.

That meal was easily the biggest I've eaten in Italy, and Bethany and I both literally waddled home after it. When we left, our waiter told us to "Come back when you speak Italy."

Once we caught the train back to Corniglia, we had exactly 382 stairs to climb to get up to the town, then back to our B&B. By this point it was after midnight, there were no lights, we both had food babies, and it was painfully slow going. But we made it safe and sound and spent the rest of the evening watching "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" on Italian TV before we fell asleep.

This morning, it rained. We decided to sleep in a little because of this, but we were still out the door around 9:30 and on our way to find the landlord and return the room keys. We had an address for an office on the other side of the island, so we packed up all of our belongings and set off in the drizzle.

We were about five minutes from the B&B when we saw the man from the rental agency limping along a side street. Bethany flagged him down and asked him in Italian where we needed to go to pay for our night. He didn't answer, but instead took the €50 note motioned for us to follow him. So we walked about another five minutes to a house and followed him inside. This was obviously where he lived; an elderly woman was watching TV and eating toast in a room just to the left of where we stood. The man went off into another room and came back with a cigar box full of money from which he extracted our change. He handed the change to me without a word and then went to sit down in the room with the woman.

Bethany and I hesitated for about a minute, then let ourselves out.

Our first stop after that strange experience was coffee and a train to Monterosso al Mare to explore the beach. The beaches in Monterosso our less rocky than on the four other islands. There are actually excellent sand beaches, that were clearly very touristy in the summer, but were nearly vacant in early March.

It had stopped raining by this point and was warm enough that we could kick off our shoes, roll up our jeans and run around in the surf for awhile. We were distracted at this point by all of the pretty beach rocks and spent literally the next hour and a half scouring the beach for the prettiest stones, pausing every once in awhile to climb the giant rocks sticking up out of the beach.

Three shots of me exploring the beach. You will have
to drag me back to America in May.

During all of this exploring, we found a lovely pier lookout, an abandoned World War II submarine, a breathtaking overlook accompanied by a giant statue of St. Francis and a dog, and a cave filled with fishing boats. An afternoon of this and we were ready for an early dinner. The two of us followed our noses in the direction of the most heavenly seafood smell known to mankind and were stopped short at the sight of Ristorante Belvedere, the swankiest place in the Cinque Terre.

The place looked five star, with white tablecloths, tuxedoed waiters, fancy artwork on the walls, and flowers on every table. Plus we could tell just looking up at it from the beach below that this place had one of the nicest views around.

But, seeing nowhere else to eat and already being in love with the Belvedere, we decided to attempt it. To the relief of us both, as we stood waiting in the entryway to be seated, we noticed most of the other patrons were dressed casually, some even in work clothes grottier than our two-day, slept-in outfits. A penguined waiter ushered us to one of the fancy tables with a nice view overlooking the sea and told us the day's specials in near-perfect English.

Since everything on the menu looked so good, Bethany and I split a grilled swordfish steak, grilled vegetables, penne scampi, and a basket of rolls. We figured why not go all out and make this our only meal for the day?

Like last night, the service was prompt and the food was out of this world. Honestly, I've never in my life eaten better than I did these past two days. Everything was perfect and if I could only eat the meals I ate this weekend for the rest of my life, I don't think I would ever complain.

We both left stuffed and thoroughly satisfied. In an effort to digest, we took a very leisurely stroll to the other end of the beach to see Il Gigante, a giant statue of Neptune carved into a rock coming out of the sea. My tour book said this massive structure once held a trident which supported a private dance floor that hung out over the waves. Unfortunately, the dance floor collapsed years ago and was never replaced. But Il Gigante still looks cool.

Since it was getting late in the afternoon, we decided to take one last train ride to Manarola. Our first stop there was to return to the main street from last night and get gelatto. I, of course, got my favorite pistacchio and dark chocolate, and we ate while walking along another seaside trail.

After that, we hiked up another cliff to the local cemetery. It may not sound like a great way to end a weekend getaway, but the view overlooking the sea was another one not to be missed, and the cemetery itself was very beautiful and well-kept with little gardens and charming, fancy headstones. I found the Italian headstones with their photos of those who had passed morbidly interesting.

We sat up in the cemetery, staring - once again - at the sea for a long time. We then made our way back down to the train station just before sundown and took the last train home to Firenze.

So all in all, this has been a fantastic weekend. Even with the rain this morning and the constant threat of rain all weekend, Cinque Terre was the most amazing and gorgeous place I have ever seen in my entire life. I'm so excited now for the Greece islands in just two weeks! I was iffy about this spring break trip before I discovered the majesty of the sea and its power to make me cry. I feel like I should have known I would have this reaction, considering it's the sea and all, but I didn't. And now all of my friends are already talking about bringing tissues with us when we go to Santorini. Oh well. Cosi va...

All the News ... In Milano

Today was field trip Numero Due di tre questo semestre.

Last night Maria cooked dinner for everyone (pasta with pancetta) and had all fifteen of us over to her apartment (she's one of six girls in the biggest apartment). Dinner was excellent and it was a great alternative to going out since we all had to be up so early this morning.

I woke up bright and early at 5:20 this morning in order to get a shower, eat an omelet and make it to the train station to meet the rest of our class at 6:30 for a 7 a.m. train to Milan.

The train ride was uneventful since most of us slept and I listened to my iPod the whole time. We arrived in Milan just before 9 a.m. and walked in a giant CCI mob with Fabio and Francesca from the train station to a cafe large enough to seat us all. I ordered a scone and cappuccino for breakfast and sat pondering the fact that the walls were covered in hand-drawn pictures of naked people. An interesting thought during breakfast.

We had a 9:30 tour after breakfast at the offices of "Corriere della Sera," ("Evening Courrier") Italy's oldest and most respected newspaper. The tour began with a video explaining what a typical day is like at the paper. Unfortunately, the video was in Italian, so Marzio, the reporter who talked to our class Tuesday, had to summarize the video in English as we watched it.

After that, we took a tour of the whole office, which was pretty cool. The first floor is dedicated to the main offices and a meeting room for editors. We got to sit at the editors' table while our guide (who only spoke Italian) told us a little about the history of the newspaper and Marzio translated. Marzio and the guide showed us copies of some of the most historic editions of the "Corriere," which were all framed around the walls. The very first edition came out March 5, 1876 and had no illustrations or images. The whole thing was just solid text, much like American newspapers of that time.

Also framed, were the first illustrated edition, papers from both World Wars, Italy gaining freedom of press, historic moments in Italian sports, and a newspaper from September 11 chronicling the attack on America.

"Attacco all'America e alla civiltà"

After this meeting, we went upstairs to the offices of "La Gazzatta dello Sport," a publication of the "Corriere" and Italy's most popular sports magazine. Only a few reporters were there since it is an evening publication, but we got to see the offices and all of the trophies the paper has earned.

At the end of the tour, we got gift bags containing copies of both papers, a news magazine, pens, and a keychain. All of the papers are in Italian, so they won't do me any good, but at least now I have some nice, free Italian papers to bring home as souvenirs.

We had three hours of free time after the newspaper tour. I went to lunch with Lydia, Erika, Yelena, and Caitlin. All five of us ordered risotto milanese (risotto with saffron and parmesan), the official food of Milan. It was soo good! This has probably been my favorite local dish so far.

Lunch took a long time (it is Italy), so we didn't have much time left to sightsee. We looked for inexpensive clothes (Caitlin and I need dresses for dancing in Madrid next weekend), but of course couldn't find any since it's Milan. In one block, I saw Gucci, Versace, Salvatore Ferragamo, Fratelli Rossetti, Luis Vuitton, Prada, Valentino, Cartier, Chanel, Fendi, Armani, Hermés, and... McDonald's, among others.

Seriously. The main square in the city center has Prada on one corner, Swarovski on another, Chanel on another, and McDonald's on the fourth. And the McDonald's looked just as classy as the stores. Go figure.

Instead, we had just enough time to go see a fountain, then go back to the newspaper to meet Fabio and Francisca, who took us to La Feltrinelli bookstore for a lecture on book publishing. This lecture was really boring. I felt bad, but between the early morning, the dull speaker and the heat (that room was really hot and it was a warm day to begin), I could barely stay awake. She literally talked about sales figures at the store. It was like a company finance meeting. All I could think about the whole time was how this store is exactly like Borders. And look how well things turned out for those guys... Don't ask me why we learned any of that, because I have no clue.

That lecture concluded our tour of Milan. We went right back to the train station after that and arrived back in Firenze just after 7 p.m.

I wish we could have seen more in Milan since it is a very beautiful city. I would say it's comparable to New York, based on what I've seen on TV of NYC. It was definitely the most crowded place I've been so far in Italy, but part of that probably had to do with the weather being nicer than it's been since the beginning of the year.

Now it's time to pack for another big day tomorrow and get to bed. I'm exhausted! Tomorrow most of our group is going to Cinque Terre for the day. Bethany and I are the only ones staying overnight, so I still need to pack for that. I probably won't want to do it tomorrow morning at 7 when I wake up...

Buona notte, mi amici!