Cinque Terre

Alright, I know it's been a while. That's why this post is going to be super long. Longer than long. A word that's longer than long. Anyway. Well, last Tuesday Lina, Robbie, Peter and I went to Trastevere and hung out with Peter's friend Ibu (sp?). We just sat for a few hours and played the guitar/drums and sang. Here's a video of Peter playing:

Please note Robbie's immense drum-playing skills. Wednesday night Lina, Ashley, Robbie, Rachel, Peter, myself and others all went to a party that was being thrown right next to the Collisseum for American students. It was fun and there was a pool, but we weren't allowed in it. Towards the end of the evening on the way home, Rachel swam in the fountain but I didn't get a picture of it. Here's a picture of Rachel, Lina and myself at the party:

Then this past weekend, Rachel, Lina, Peter, Robbie and myself all went to Cinque Terre. It's a beautiful group of five cities in northern Italy. You should definitely google it if you're not familiar. We had the BEST weekend ever. So hilarious. First off, the train ride to Cinque Terre was a blast because we were drinking vino and eating bread, salami and cheese. So delicious. Here's a picture of Robbie and I with the yummy spread:

Then, after a bit of vino, things started getting a little hectic. On our second and final train, unbeknownst to me, the four of them decided it would be an excellent idea to try and touch the walls of the tunnel the drain was passing through while the train was moving... with a fanta can. So Lina asserts herself as being completely competent in all things fanta-related and leans her entire body out of the train, scraping the can and her entire hand along the concrete wall at upwards of 80 km per hour. Don't worry she's fine, not broken just bruised:

When we arrived in Monterosso (one of the five towns of the Cinque Terre-the one we were staying in), we proceeded to look for a room. Yes, it was 1 in the morning and we had not yet booked a room. We knew of a campground a long way off and knew that they had room for us, so we decided to walk there. I (being my best after a long train and a bit of vino) decided that our best course of action would be to climb up and over the nearest mountain. So I led my friends up a mountain for about an hour and a half until they called me on my failure as a guide and we walked back down. We had fun playing water bottle soccer though:

When we realized around 3 am that we wouldn't be finding any accomodations we decided to sleep on the beach. Well, I decided to sleep on the beach. The others had a harder time falling asleep. Who knew I was so good at sleeping during hilariously stressful situations? This lovely statue carved out of the mountain was our keeper for the night and he watched over us while we slept:

The next morning, everyone was sleeping on benches while we waited for hotels to open so we could get a room. We ended up being able to find one at a hotel called souvenir which is where another group of our friends was staying. We got a room for 2 people which was quite possibly the smallest room you've ever seen in your life with only a queen sized bed. Here's Lina and Rachel on the benches:

After we rested and showered in our hotel, we decided to go play on the beach. The beach was gorgeous and there was a wall that people were jumping off of, so we decided to jump off too. It was sooo fun. I think I jumped like 5 times. The water was intensely salty though, surprisingly so. Here's a video of me jumping and the beach itself:

Robbie, Rachel and myself decided to go walk around the "pier" and see what was out there. We ended up finding a bunch of rocks to climb around on and proceeded to have a great time:

Robbie found a cave and decided to climb into it:

He took a picture from inside of Rachel and me:

I went inside too just to see what it was like. It was beautiful and sparkling and it even seemed to go deeper into the mountain, maybe that exploration will have to wait for another day ;)

After showering again, we decided to go get an apperativo and really "do monterosso right" so to speak. We went to a small enoteca (wine bar) and shared a liter of white wine (it was sooo hot so it was nice that the wine was cold).

For our actual dinner we decided to go to a place called Ciak which looked really delicious and had these huge things of pasta which they brought for the whole table:

It was delicious pasta with a bunch of freshly caught and cooked shellfish. The waiter was really funny and good natured, especially when we asked him to bring a bowl of ice for Lina's hand :) Here's a picture of us with Lina icing her hand:

We then moved on to another bar appropriately called American Bar where we met some... Americans!

Another bar where we drank irish coffee:

There were maybe 1 or 2 more bars after this one... but I don't have any pictures :) The next morning we left to go on our hike through Cinque Terre. We took the train to Manarola:

Here's a picture of me with Manarola in the background before we started the hike:

Here's a picture on the hiking trail. In the way background there's Manarola which we hiked from and in the foreground there's Corniglia, the second town we hiked to. This picture was taken in between Corniglia and Vernazza, the town we finished our hike in:

Here's a picture of beautiful Vernazza where we ate pesto pizza for lunch. Cinque Terre is known for its pesto so we had to try it before we left, and you know how much I love pizza. Basically the best thing ever:

After lunch in Vernazza, we took the train home to Rome. I'm really going to miss Cinque Terre. I fell in love with it while I was there, but I'm definitely going back. Just to finish off, here's a beautiful picture that I took in the early morning on Saturday from the beach in Monterosso: