me, i call it "one land"

We arrived in Florence about 8:30. Yvette had called while we were on the train and was relieved to learn that we hadn’t actually had an inordinate amount of fun the night before without her. Heidi, bless her six days without sleep heart, was raring to go, so Yvette took her on a tour. This is a picture from Heidi and Yvette’s day in Florence:


This is a picture of Brie’s and my day in Florence:


They came back in the mid-afternoon and we got all of our stuff together (it was mostly already packed by Snow Pea) and left for Cinque Terre.

Cinque Terre means “Five Lands” in Italian, and it’s five towns along the coast, linked by the train and a hiking trail. We took a train to Monterosso, the first of the five towns, and then a local train to Vernazza, where we were staying. We were so happy to be safely in Monterosso, leaning over the balcony at the train station and listening to the sea and eating bruschettini from the vending machine. This is frozen Brie, who liked to pretend we were vacationing in July, wearing a T-shirt and a scarf at the station.

At the Vernazza station, I asked for a map of the town so I could find where we were staying. The guy just kind of looked at me blankly. Once we headed into town, I could see why. The town was basically a street. It was like asking for a map of Upland.

And also, it was completely dead. I knew it was a more of a summer location, but I don’t think we saw a soul after we left the train station, and all the doors and windows were closed. We stopped halfway down the street because I noticed the name “Rosa” on one of the apartment doorbells we passed, and then I heard, “Michelle?” floating down from somewhere. I just had to call out “Sì” since I didn’t know where the voice was coming from. And then we looked up, and a woman was leaning out a window four stories above us.

Rosa welcomed us and led us up the four flights to get settled into our little apartment (complete with a little kitchen… now from Rome I am so jealous of our Cinque Terre selves with a kitchen). And then we decided to head out and see the nightlife… meaning find anything with food that was open. I don’t even know if I had eaten yet that day.

We walked down to the beautiful picturesque harbor and found, to my joy, a restaurant that was open. We went in and had fantastic salads and pasta. My pasta was penne and prawns, and even though it skeeved me out a little to have the little shrimp faces staring at me and Yvette had to show me how to eat them, it was the best thing I ate in Italy.

The next morning we got up and had breakfast at the Blue Marlin Bar, which I was excited about because they had eggs made in the American style, and Heidi was excited about because they had a waiter made in the underwear model style. Unfortunately, the underwear model style waiter told us, the grill wasn’t working and I couldn’t have my eggs, but we should come back that night and maybe Heidi could have the waiter. Or some paraphrase of the above.

After breakfast we were supposed to go on a hike through the five towns, one of the highlights of seeing Cinque Terre, but it was getting kind of drizzly and I was just having a rough day, for various reasons that have nothing to do with our story, and wasn’t up for it. Really I should have a guest blogger at this point, but I will just try to satisfy your insatiable Cinque Terre curiosity by showing you some pictures from the others, who hiked from Vernazza to Monterosso, or vice versa, or something.

This is a view of Vernazza from the trail:


This is Yvette having nightmarish flashbacks to the steps of St. Peter’s:


This is Heidi, wearing the famous "pantalones":


When they got back I wanted to walk up and look for this bakery that was supposed to have a sweet ricotta pastry called panzerotta, so Brie went with me. I was disappointed because the bakery was closed, but we did find a little trail that led up to a cemetery above town. I brought my camera with me but left the camera card in the room, so I don’t have any photographs, which is too bad, because it was really lovely. The cemetery was on a cliff overlooking the waves crashing against the harbor below. Brie and I pondered beauty and mortality and panzerotta.

After we got back we got ready and I hinted really subtly that it would be just really great if we could go to the same restaurant again that night so I could order the exact same thing. And I did, and it was wonderful again, although the waitress kept giving us the evil eye for an unknown reason. Perhaps she thought it was lame to get penne and prawns two nights in a row.

After that, we stopped at the Blue Marlin, but the underwear model was strangely not in attendance. No matter, Heidi soon drew the attention of the other cute Italian waiter. He made plans to meet us after. Due to my aforementioned blue funk, I decided to just write off my Vernazza experience as a loss (except for the prawns) and go back, but the others met the guy, Guiliano, at the harbor.

And here’s where I really, really should have a guest blogger, but you’ll just have to ask the ragazze what happened yourself.