Italy -- Warning: Long Post

Sooo much has happened in the last few days. I am worn out, and my 10 days of break still aren't up yet. So here's the breakdown:

Spent a couple of days in Rome. I randomly ran into someone I knew from Tech in some small restaurant, and he invited me to go to the Vatican with them at 8am the next morning. So I figured I'd spend the day with him and his friends, since I hadn't seen him in a while. So we do the Vatican Museum, and at one point I'm looking at something and he tells me he will wait for me in the next room. Well he picked a next room that I didn't see, and I apparantly fast-tracked myself into the Sistene Chapel.

So I couldn't find him, finished up the museum by myself, then tried to back-track a couple of times to see if I could find any of the group. I ran into one of the girls that he was travelling with, so we went outside to wait for the rest of the group. 45 minutes, still no one comes out. So we move on to St. Peter's Basilica. Little did we know that while we were waiting outside for them, they were waiting just inside the exit for us. And they were worried about the one girl who got separated from the group, cause they thought she didn't have the address for the hostel they were in.

But we don't know any of this, and after we get out of St. Peter's and still haven't found them, we decide to just toodle around Rome for the day. We checked out a castle, scoped out Rome from the top and found all the landmarks on our map, then wandered back down, bought some stuff from street vendors, went and sat at the Vittorio Emanuel II monument, which is gorgeous, ate some gelato, and just had a generally awesome day. Then we eventually find out that the group has been waiting/looking for her for the last 5 hours. Didn't really mess up the day too much though, cause we found them and everything worked out. Went and got some really good dinner afterwards.

So that was my day with Casner. The next day the Tech group was all supposed to get up early and catch an early train to Cinque Terre. I'm the only one that gets up and moving on time (despite having been out late), and I wake everyone up, and we get to the station about an hour after we'd planned. Not too bad, I guess, considering it was a group of like 12 people trying to get ready in half an hour. So we start figuring out how the train rides are going to work out and how much time we'll have and so forth, and people start to get unruly. We had only wanted to spend one day in Cinque Terre (which is not enough by the way--I think you could spend forever there), but it turned out to be 8 hours round trip of travel, for what was looking like only 4-6 hours of time in Cinque Terre.

So most of the group is starting to punk out, but Kabir has been standing in line, just to save a place in case we want the tickets. So I turn around to find him and he's made it all the way up to the ticket counter, so I just hold up two fingers, and he gets us two tickets to CT. We decide that we'll just go, stay overnight, and come back in the morning. We enlist two more guys to join us, and the trip starts.

It was definitely the best trip so far. We go to CT, which is one of the most beautiful places ever, hike around for a little bit to see some of the views, then climb down the rocks and go swimming in the Mediterranean.

Then we decide we want to see the sun setting over the water. It's probably about 7p when we decide this, and sunset was probably around 9p. So we catch a train to the western-most town of the bunch, Monterosso. But it turns out that the beautiful view we had from every other town doesn't exist in the same way from Monterosso. It just so happens that there's a big mountain in the way of the sunset.

By this point we're at about T-90 minutes and counting to sunset. So we decide that since there are trails, we are going to hike up the mountain and watch our sunset anyways. We head out on what we think is the right trail, and after about 15 minutes run into an Italian guy (in Italy, go figure). We talk to him, and all point at the map and speak in our respective languages and after a few minutes of no one knowing what's going on, we figure out that we're pretty much hiking through his back yard. Whoops! Lol. So he kindly points us in the right direction, and we head back down to find the real trail-head. We find it, and its about 60 minutes to sunset. There's no way we're going to make it up that mountain before sunset, but we go at it anyways.

We run up the mountain for a little ways before completely wearing ourselves out with that, and then set a fast pace for the rest of the hike up. We stop twice, but keep the pace pretty quick. As it turns out, we managed to make it up the mountain in something like 45 minutes, dripping sweat and exhausted, just as the sun is beginning to touch the horizon. And to make it even more rewarding, there was some random building up on top of the mountain, as well as the ruins of an old Roman church. So we climb up the building, and have one of the most amazing views ever, above the trees, on top of a mountain above Cinque Terre. We watch the sun go down over the water, then turn around to find all the lights turning on in all of the 5 towns along the coast. It was absolutely beautiful. We hung out there for a little while enjoying the view, then headed back down in the quickly waning light. But not before climbing the ruins as well, of course. And getting pictures of it all.

So we get back down into Monterosso, and seek out food. Absolutely amazing meal. Then we go chill out right above the beach for a bit, and after a few minutes I look up and see a bright glowing dome. It looks like the gilded top of some building, but its just a little bit too far to the right, which means it would have had to have been over the water. And its a bright ruddy orange color. After looking at it for a minute, I realize it's rising, and it's the moon. So we watch a beautiful orange moon rise up over the water, after having watched a beautiful sunset that we worked so hard for, and then having a great meal. After the moon rises, we go find a bar, stay there till it closes around 1, and then get bottles of wine and just go chill on the beach. We fall asleep against the wall next to the beach, and that ends our day in Cinque Terre. We hadn't planned on getting any lodging anyways, since it was only one night and we were already paying for that night for a hotel in Rome.

The next day I'm alone in CT, cause the other guys went back early in order to have time to go see the Vatican. I hop a train back to Spezia, where I'll buy my ticket back to Rome, but I fall asleep on the way. I wake up to one of the ticket checkers on the train. I show him my CT pass (which allows unlimited between the cities for two days) and he asks where I'm going. I say Spezia, and he points backwards. I slept through the stop. He tells me to just get off at the next one and head back to Spezia. So I get off at the next stop, then decide it will work just as well to buy a ticket from there to Rome.

So I go into the station and buy my ticket, but since it's a smaller town, it has a one hour layover. In Pisa! Sweet! Leaning tower here I come! I get to Pisa, find a map, and power-walk across the city to go see the tower. Its pretty much a straight shot, and I get across the city, take a left, and within about 200 yards, the tower comes into view. It's a beautiful tower, and its right in front of a beautiful palace. But it's really just comical, because its such a beautiful structure, but totally tilted at a hysterical angle. I check it out for about 90 seconds, then head back across the city. I timed my walk over, and I'll just barely have enough time to get back and catch my train.

I'm checking my watch the entire way back, and I think I'm doing ok, till I realize the landmark I was marking for my destination was actually a piazza some ways still from the station. So I start running. I fly into the station and push my way to my platform, through I bunch of people that just got off a different train. Luckily my train is still on the platform. I literally get onto my train, stop to breathe, and after about 30 seconds my train starts pulling out of the station. I cut it that close. But I got to see Pisa! The rest of the train ride back to Rome was uneventful, except that I was dead tired and couldn't sleep cause it was uncomfortable.

We go to a Bengali festival that night, have some good Indian food, then decide to go out to this cool bar we heard about called Ice Bar. There's some arguing about what it's going to be and whether it's worth it, cause its a 15€ cover. Turns out it was totally worth it. The entire bar was made out of ice. You entered from the front door into the normal temperature, normal material foyer. Then they give everyone gloves and these heavy metallic looking ponchos that make everyone look like characters from Star Wars. Then you go through a climitization chamber, and bam, you're in an igloo. The temperature inside was 23F. And everything is ice. The walls, the benches, the bar top, the glasses. Everything. Was pretty much one of the coolest things I've ever seen. And they can only serve drinks with strong liquor, as beer and wine will freeze. LOL.

The next day we all set off for Florence, which is where I am now. We wander around a little bit, and end up walking down the most expensive street I think I've ever been on. It had stores from every high end designer name I think I've ever heard of, and then some. Gucci, Prada, Pucci, Tiffany's, etc etc etc. And all of the stores have their intimidatingly well-dressed doormen. In excellent Italian suits, of course. The Italian suit rocks, by the way. I don't think I'll ever get tired of pinstripes.

So we wander through that, then head off for the Duomo, which is the main cathedral of the town. It's absolutely amazing. Huge, with a facade that's completely made of marble. Absolutely ridiculous. We climb up to the top of the dome, 463 steps, and get an amazing view of the city. Everything is just insanely pretty. Mountains in the background, terra cotta roofs on everything, the occasional church dome sticking out above the other buildings. Awesome.

After the Duomo, we head to the Uffizzi, the museum with one of the largest and most famous collections of well-known Rennaissance art. Tons of marble sculptures and paintings. Got to see the "Birth of Venus" as well as another really famous one thats titled something about Venus laying nude. Leave there and skip going to see the statue of David, cause the line is over 4 hours long, just for that one statue, and we're only here for a day and a half. Get dinner, go out, have a generally excellent time.

And now it's today. Whoo! Holy cow, I definitely have not slept enough in the past few days, and we have been going non-stop. I know this is a ridiculously long post, but it's the best I could do.

I miss seeing familiar faces, but I guess its a tradeoff for seeing some of the craziest sites in the world. Getting kind of tired of this clique that I'm travelling with, since I've been around them 24 hours a day for the past few days. But I most certainly can't complain.

Miss you all and love you! I head to Venice tonight. Talk to you later! Carli, let me know if you're gonna be able to make it out for my next week break.

Ciao!!