Cinque Terre

October 1st, 2009
Cinque Terre
Hello all, I’m back with another exciting blog! So I have been up to a lot since my last post so hopefully this won’t be too lengthy for you all to read. I would like to start by addressing students who may be interested in this program. Just do it, you will not regret it! I probably had the same fears you did, but I’m telling you once you are here, they will disappear almost instantly! With that I will now tell you about what I’ve been up to.

Last weekend we had a group of 50 students go to Cinque Terre, which is a series of 5 cities along the Italian coast which you are able to hike between. I know I said Switzerland had amazing views, but this place had even better views! I realize it sounds like every place I go is my new favorite place, and well that’s because it’s true haha! It is hard to compare Switzerland to Cinque Terre because while they are both so beautiful, the atmospheres are completely different. We went to Switzerland to do the extreme sports and have a wild time. However, Cinque Terre was a relaxing vacation type spot. However, it wasn’t very relaxing getting there.

Since we had a large group, Alberto (a guard who also runs a small travel agent type operation) set our group up with a charter bus to get there. It was about a 5.5 hour trip and we left about 2AM to get there Saturday morning around 7:30AM. Well for those who know me know I pretty much don’t sleep in cars, plans, trains, whatever, I just for some reason can’t sleep. So you can imagine I didn’t sleep on the bus so I was up for like 36 straight hours from Friday morning until Saturday night. So by the time I got there I was already very tired. We got dropped off at the train station and we had about a 10 minute train ride to get to the first city. We started the train ride not seeing the Ocean and I started to think ok maybe this place isn’t as beautiful as everyone says. So we go into a tunnel for about 7 or 8 minutes and all the sudden we come out to like the best view ever. Everyone saw it at the same moment and the whole train was just like OHH Sh$%!! Instantly I was awake and ready to go see the 5 cities.

We couldn’t check in until 10:30 so a smaller group of us went to, well I guess you could call it a beach lol. Cinque Terre is a very rocky place so it was just a flat part with a little cove covered with little round smooth rocks. We were sitting there for a little bit wading the water, by the way, the rocks were the most slippery thing I’ve ever set foot on, and a few of us decided to go in. So I changed into my swimming suite on the beach, it was ok since I was in Europe haha! Then we went for a swim in the Mediterranean Sea! The water was a little cold, could make a Seinfeld reference but I’ll refrain since this is supposed to be a family blog. So after the swim we got checked in and then went to go exploring!

The hike to the second town was only about 20 minutes, but had some truly amazing views. In the second town, we came across a large island in the middle of a lagoon type thing where people could climb up and jump off into the water. I love to jump off high things so this was probably the favorite thing I did while I was in Cinque Terre. After jumping and swimming there for about an hour we headed off to the next town. This was about an hour hike but the views kept us entertained. There were also some merchants selling things along the way we looked at. Once we got to the city, we had to climb 382 stairs to get up there. That was a hike and since I was running on no sleep, I was pretty dead after that climb haha. After that we decided we would take the train to the next few towns since the hikes were just supposed to get harder. Now, getting to the train station is a story all in itself so I will apologize I don’t do it justice.

So for all who have been to Italy, you know Italians don’t believe in lines. We were first in line to get on the bus to the train station; we were the last on the bus lol. The bus was too heavy so the bus driver kicked all of us off the bus and said he would be back in five minutes. We were first in line once again, and again we were the last on the bus. He allowed half the group to stay on this time; unfortunately, I was not in that half. This time the bus driver said he would not be coming back as it was time for his break. We weren’t sure if we heard right so we waited for a little while then decided he wasn’t coming back so we started the walk to the train station. As we were walking the bus rolled up and the bus driver stopped and said what I imagine to be “what the hell are you stupid Americano’s doing!!!” Americanos was the only word I got out of what he was saying. It turns out our friends convinced him to come back for us, but since we weren’t aware of that, we just left haha. Well he picked us up and took us there and we went on our way to the next two towns. I didn’t do much that night, I stayed up until around 12 but crashed after that.

The next day was much more relaxing. I went with a group to the 5th town where there was a sand beach and I stayed there all day! It was like a legit beach vacation. We ate on the beach, had strawberry daiquiris, that sort of thing and it was a great relaxing time. We left around 5 to come back to school. Needless to say, no one was ready to come back to school, especially since I had a quiz Monday I had not studied for haha. But when I got back around 10:30 I studied for a couple of hours and it was fine. I was planning on telling you about the formal dinner we had last night, amazing by the way, but this is already very long so I will write about that later. Who knows maybe I’ll even write about school next time for the parents of interested students haha. But to those parents, there is plenty of learning going on here so no worries!! To all my family and friends back in the states, hope everything is well and I miss you all but I’m having an amazing time! Ciao!!