Back up--Birthday and Cinque Terre

Tuesday on campus was the International Student Day. In the evening, students with musical talents performed for the entire campus. We were serenaded by a violin and piano, guitars, and harmonicas. One of the USAC participants gave a shout out to John Belushi before performing with his shades on, a fantastic jazz tune on his harmonica. Several of the other performances reminded me of the Strawberry Musical Festival, which I will hopefully be able to go to when I return home. After we were completely awed by one boy who played an incredibly difficult piano piece, the show was over. One of the girls in the program wanted to end on a high note, but sadly the sound system was not working for our adviser. After everyone had left however, the loud tunes of Techno Slide blasted into the auditorium. All of the American students remaining in the auditorium raced to the front of the building to join in and “Slide to the Left-----Slide to the Right------Two Hops this Time # # Two Hops this Time # # ”. 

Thursday, my birthday, was an uneventful day. I went to my classes and then afterwards enjoyed a dinner with some friends. When I returned to my apartment, my roommates had made me a straticella cake, complete with nutella frosting and trick candles. Yum! Everyone enjoyed it and then we went to Lucio’s (a café where the younger crowd tends to hang out) to dance those calories off. Sadly, the live band had already finished playing or had never shown up, but the entire USAC group was there, making the tiny space of Lucio’s very crowded.

What felt more like my birthday actually wouldn’t begin until Saturday, but I will get there in a moment.

Friday I went to my first Italian opera, which was conveniently in Viterbo.  The opera house was beautiful, but we were told the incorrect time for the beginning of the show and thus missed the very start, not that it mattered much since it was all in Italian I could only understand so much anyways. The opera was Figero (not sure of the actual name of the opera…). The vocals were amazing and the skits were hilarious. Humor is a universal language.

Saturday, on a whim, I decided to travel to Cinque Terre.  Maretta, who when she heard I was going to Cinque Terre asked to accompany me, and I left Viterbo before the sun had even thought about making an appearance. The train ride seemed to take forever, which really eight hours is forever! When we arrived in Cinque Terre after a heck of a time getting there (never trust Trenitalia), we explored and hiked the first town, Rimogiore. From Rimogiore, we took the Trail of Love running right along the coastline to the next town of Manorola. The trail was beautiful despite the windy, wet weather. Along the pathway, like in Venice and Florence, there were locks of love lining the fences. In another area, where I am assuming people did not feel like spending eight euro on a lock, there were knots of love made from scraps of clothing and whatever else was handy at the time.

Near the end of the trail was a line of picnic tables where Maretta and I sat to split a Reeses’ Peanut Butter Cup. At the table next to us were two Italian local women playing a game of cards. We wanted to join them.

Being such a last minute decision, we had nowhere to spend the night in Cinque Terre. While we were exploring the next town of Manorla, the nice owner of the pizzeria we ate at (who Maretta decided she would someday marry) told us about the only hostel in town, which just happened to be in Manorla. Perfect! We checked in and then headed back into to the train station to try to explore some more of the towns. At the train station we met a couple from Minnesota, Dave and Luanne, who instantly took us under their wing. It was their second time in Italy and their second time to Cinque Terre because they enjoyed it so much the first time. After a brief tour of Vernazza, they left us to meet up with some of their friends. We decided to go to the bar Dave and Luanne had recommended The Blue Marlin, or maybe it was called the Blue Marina….?

Walking through the front door, I was instantly in love with the atmosphere of the bar when I saw the owner jamming on the wall of glass bottles with drumsticks, not worried in the least about shattering the expensive alcohol everywhere. Again, Maretta claimed her undying love for the bartender and attempted to get his attention. However, it was not until Dave and Luanne joined us at our table that he came over for a picture, prompted by the embarrassing mothering of Luanne. He came over for the picture, but to Maretta’s disappointment, sat down next to me and rested his head on my shoulder for the photo op. Haha! Both Luanne and Maretta were drooling later on when a glass of red wine was spilt on his tight white shirt. Unfortunately for them he changed into another shirt away from their prying eyes.

Dave was an amazing storyteller and it was obvious he loved to tell stories by the way Luanne rolled her eyes whenever he began one. Luanne also insisted on holding their huge, expensive camera knowing pictures would just prompt more stories out of Dave. The owner (the grooving hippie who for some reason reminded me of Beetlejuice) came over at one point because he wanted to take a picture of all of us using the “Bazooka Camera!” While he took our picture he imitated the clicking noise of the camera and made a gun motion as if he was firing. He was quite the character.

We didn’t want to leave Dave and Luanne and thus caught the very last train back to Manorla. We had to be back to our hostel before midnight or they would lock us out. Unfortunately, the hostel was at the very top of the town and the train station at the very bottom. Out of breath and with burning legs we made it to the  hostel just in time but only after both of our umbrellas were turned inside out by the wind, which with our luck was blowing against us making our uphill sprint even more challenging.

The next day we were donning our garbage bag protective gear when we met Donna in the hostel entryway. Donna was going to Genova for the day and Maretta and I decided to join her. It took us FOREVER to get to Genova, and once we got there we had only a few hours before we had to get back on the train back to Cinque Terre. Genova has a huge aquarium that we went to. The penguin exhibit was of course my favorite, but they also had an amazing hummingbird exhibit. Their dark green bodies were zooming around my head like a vibrating halo. 

Before returning to the train, I stopped in a hotel and asked if they had a phone book. The man laughed when I asked if there were any Lagomarsinos listed in the book. He replied that the Lagomarsinos were the largest family in Genova. I wish I had had more time in Genova, I might have been able to contact one of these family members and find out something about our family history. I felt like I had completed some kind of pilgrimage when I saw those names written out in neat columns, one after another. All linked together by a common name passed down through generations.

Of course, we missed our train back to Viterbo, but neither of us were terribly upset. We decided to stay one more night in our hostel. Back at the hostel we ate dinner and met another extraordinary world traveler named Beverley. Beverley is 75 years old from Australia and is enjoying a six month adventure through all of Europe by herself. According to Bev koalas screech like banshees and snakes are friendly. When she parted with us (“those daft American girls”) she promised we could be pen pals for life!

The next morning we began our homeward journey-a journey I am not particularly fond of. Trenitalia (the train system of Italy) will forever be a mystery to me, and was simply a frustration trying to make it back to Viterbo. We ended up having to pay a fine when we were less than an hour away from Viterbo because the tickets I had bought were apparently not the correct ones (oy vey!). My spur of the moment trip ended up being possibly the most expensive trip I will take the entire time I am abroad.

The only upside of the return trip home was an hour delay in Pisa in which Maretta and I literally ran to the leaning tower of Pisa, took a few pictures posing in front of its surprisingly small structure, and then ran back to the train platform where of course we ended up having plenty of time to catch our breath because of course our train was late. Oh, trenitalia.