[46] cinque...

I slept til noon. I got up, had a salami sandwich, and began packing for my weekend trip to Cinque Terre. Once I was packed, I also placed everything from the floor of my room on my bed so that the cleaning person could easily vacuum. I also checked the mail and finally received my absentee ballot!

At around 3:30pm, I headed down to the train station to once again try and reserve seats for the train. After waiting in a ridiculously long line for 30 minutes, I approached the window. I already knew of the time that I wanted to switch too, yet the clerk assigned us a time that was 30 minutes less than what I told Alonzo. I called him to inform him of the change and he said that he could meet me at SACI. I went to SACI to try and find a lock for the lockers at the hostel, as well as print out my hostel reservation email. The printers didn't work and there were no locks available. I went to the store to grab a water and then met up with Alonzo.

We got to the station and the bin in which the train was expected to arrive. As the departure time approached we went searching for answers. We found out that the train in which we were given wasn't coming and instead we had to take the 5:26pm train (the one that I had asked for from the clerk). We got on a train that headed towards Pisa Centrale and were forced to stand the entire way because of how crowded it was. I assume because of the combination of the train MIA and the fact that there was a strike. Because we had to get on this other train at the last minute, we didn't have the proper ticket that said our itinerary. Once we got on the train in Pisa, we ended up sitting in the first class section, unscathed. The seats were nice, lots of padding, plenty of leg space and, well, first class.

We arrived to La Spezia and ran into a couple of people our age. We asked there where they were going and they told us Monterosso, which is the last of the 5 towns that make up Cinque Terre. We found our train to Manarola (the second of the 5 towns) and boarded. It was completely empty which made the 10 minute commute to our destination eerie and exciting at the same time. We finally made it to Manarola.

Once we arrived, we went through a long tunnel and came out at the base of a steep hill. There, directly in front of us, was a small cafe still open thankfully. We each got a piece of pizza some chips and a tea and sat on some steps outside the cafe. After refueling our bodies, we made the hike up the steep hill previously mentioned. A 150 meter walk, I presume. We found the hostel, checked in, got our keys, and headed to the room. The room was completely empty (much like the train, odd, huh?). We made our beds and since it was only 9ish, we decided to see what all was happening in the town. We asked Ricardo, the desk attendent, if he had any suggestions. He told us a small cafe in which people sometimes play guitar. On the way we found the ocean and spent a while looking at it, and the hill with the houses from google images that I've seen countless times. We went into the cafe afterwards, ordered a couple birra moretti's and relaxed. Ricardo was correct, some people did play the guitar, nothing inparticular, just strumming. Alonzo and I discussed art (ironic, I know) and gave our interpretations of what certain things mean, etc etc.

We went back to the hostel around 11:30 and did a little bit of sketching before finally being manually placed in the dark at midnight when the lights went out. I slept.