Cinque Terre= Heaven on Earth

I had the most beautiful weekend in Cinque Terre this weekend with the SMU girls. We ran down to the train station after our class on Friday and hopped on to a train to Milan from there. Our train to Milan decided it wanted to delay for 20 minutes which got us to our platform in Milan just in time for us to watch our next train leave. We were surprised by this at all? Nope. Italian trains are always a little funky! We were supposed to be at our hostel at 445, but didn't end up getting there until 730 thanks to the lateness of trains and missing connections! We got to Riomaggiore as the sun was finishing to set and the views over the Mediterranean Sea were absolutely incredible. 

Our hostel was really nice and full of Australians! We got to talk to them for awhile and then went to dinner at a local restaurant and the waiter was one of the rudest people ever! I got gelato after dinner to make me feel better about the grumpy dude. Everything in the hostel would have been perfect but there was a chick snoring so loud all night- so frustrating! We got up in the morning and bought our passes to the walking trail, where the woman was also incredibly rude. The walk from town 1 (Riomaggiore) to town 2 is known as the Lover's Trail and is an easy walk where couples have put locks all along the railing, and pretty much everywhere as part of their commitment to each other! 

The walk was 20 minutes long and really beautiful. At one point there was a tunnel where people had signed all the walls and someone wrote something that I wouldn't be able to express any better:

Cinque Terre=  amore!

After exploring town 2 (Manarola) for awhile we took a train to town 3 and town 4. Town 3 (Corniglia) is a smaller town situated on top of a giant hill that you get to walk up. There are 382 stairs total to climb to get to the top. 

As you begin the climb they have this encouraging sign

View of the stairs from halfway up

Town 4 (Vernazza) was different than the first 3 towns because it was super crowded and touristy. We got there around lunch time so we walked around and finally found a hole in the wall that looked really popular and was selling fried fish in a cone. It was delicious! Fried shrimp, calamari, fish, and some mystery meat on a stick and yummy fried vegetables of some sort. While we were in line there was a couple that had just gotten married and I guess part of the tradition in that town was the bride and groom went onto a balcony on the main street and started throwing candy to all of the wedding guests.. and tourists! Everyone was taking pictures of the couple throwing candy and I wonder how it felt knowing they were going to be in hundreds of random tourists pictures!

My picture of them

After lunch and sitting by the water for awhile we began the trek walking between towns 4 and 5- and it was quite the trek! The walk wouldn't have been so bad if we didn't all have our backpacks on! Our hostel didn't have bag service so we had to carry all of our backpacks on our excursion with us because we were leaving from town 5 and it just made the walk so much more difficult. You could see Monterossa at the same level as Vernazza, but in order to walk to it you had to go up a giant mountain, down the mountain, across a valley, up another mountain, back down the second mountain, and finally a little walk into town! By the time we got to the outskirts of town we were ready to rid our backpacks, run to the beach, and jump into the Mediterranean! It felt wonderful. Hillary, Jen, and I swam over to a cliff that people were jumping off of, and proceeded to jump off as well! Cliff jumping is probably one of my new favorite things. Especially after an hour and a half hike in 80 degree weather up hundreds of stairs with a backpack on! 

Above Vernazza before climbing the first mountain

After some more Italian train drama, and sprinting through the Milan train station trying to buy tickets for what we were told was the last train to Lugano (leaving in 10 minutes!) it was wonderful to get back to Lugano in one piece. Jen made fried rice for us and we did what any normal study abroad student would do- watched the SMU/TCU football game! The game ended at 2am our time, but in case yall don't know how it turned out: SMU WON!!!!!!!!!! First time since 2005 SMU has won this rivalry game. It was much needed after our evening of stress trying to get back to Switzerland! 

Manarola

Riomaggiore

Sunday night: After Shelayne got home from her weekend away, we made delicious gnocchi and spaghetti sauce and then before doing homework had an intense craving for nutella cookies. As study abroad students, only here for 4 months total we decided we didn't need to purchase a lot of cooking utensils, including measuring spoons. So not only do we have to guess on how much of the ingredients to add, we have to get creative with putting it all together! 

I give you, our cookies that are about to be put in the oven: 

The recipe didn't call for any peanut butter, but we thought it was an appropriate ingredient. I have finally met someone who loves and appreciates peanut butter as much as I do! It's dangerous. 

Monday: 

I am embarrassed to say that it took me this long to get to the gym, but I went to the gym today and ran and it was quite the experience. The gym in total has 3 treadmills, 2 ellipticals, and 1 bicycle. While running on the treadmills, one is forced to face the people that are simultaneously working out on any of the other three machines. Kind of awkward. Shelayne and I went grocery shopping after class and for dinner, we made hamburgers! So delicious. I can't explain how much I miss American food. Tomorrow we are making soft tacos, and Wednesday chicken sandwiches. The food here is delicious, don't get me wrong.. but some normal food/ non pasta food is much appreciated every now and then.