Here it goes again in less than 30 minutes. Let's see what I can crank out before our train takes off for Rome.
Monday (continued)
So after the boat ride, we went back to the room and chillaxed for a bit. I think that was the day that I sat up from the bed and smacked my head into the shutters that were inside the room. It really hurt and I got a big bump, and discovered blood the next day. Andrea fail. (Evan says that maybe I don't remember which day it is because I hit my head).
Since we were going to leave really early the next day, we realized we should pay for our room that night. We hadn't figured that out before hand so we stopped by the Pizzeria, but it was closed. Then we walked up the street to a house that has massages by Stephanie who we figured was the same person Evan had talked to on the phone (and Rick Steves has referenced her in his book). There was no answer at the door. Then we tried calling Ivo's phone number and got no answer. Instead, we figured we would try to call Stephanie with only two minutes left on our phone card. Very quickly I explained that we needed to pay and she said we could just leave the money and keys in the room (this is a very strange thing given what we're used to at hotels in the US but it's actually kind of nice to have that relaxed feeling about paying). I told her we were going up the street for dinner if someone was around so she said she'd have Michelle (with the little girl) stop by. If not, we could just leave the money like she said. Okey dokey!
So we went to dinner at a fun place (where we almost stayed) at the top of the main road, Il Pirata delle Cinque Terre. Identical twin brothers run the place and the one we talked to was hilarious. He loved to talk up everyone and had lots and lots of stories about Rick Steves, Andy Steves (his son), and something about eating food off of women... (he said it was disrespectful but somehow we had a hard time believing him). The food was delicious. A few minutes later, Michelle, her daughter, and the man we presumed to be Ivo stopped by and collected the money. We just handed her the cash right there at dinner. It was funny but like I said, kind of nice to have that attitude and trust between toursits and locals.
A bit later, two girls came by and he sat them next to us and said "Oh they are from Seattle too. Perfect. You sit with them!". It turned out the girls were from Everett and Marysville. Small world. We talked to them through the dinner and they told us that they both got stung by jellyfish (we were kind of relieved that we didn't go swimming after hearing that). I told them something dumb I had done the first day we were in Vernazza (which maybe from the bump on my head I forgot to write before...).
On the first day, I used the toilet in our bathroom. I closed the lid, and hit what I thought was the flush thing. I heard lots of noise and water sounds but when I opened the lid, the toilet wasn't flushed. Confused, I tried again. It didn't work and I thought it was strange because the flush thing looked like something you'd use to turn on a shower or bathtub. I finally looked up and saw the big button you use for "big flush" or "little flush" (gross, I know). I hit the right one. After seeing water everywhere, it finally came together. The flush thing I had tried to use was for the bidet (look it up if you don't know what it is because I will not be explaining that one). All I can say is good thing I closed the lid.
Back to dinner. We finished dinner up with some limoncello (which unfortunately, we didn't like) and some yummy dessert. We headed back to our room, packed our stuff and set the alarm for 4:45 am.
Tuesday
We got up and out of the room early Tuesday morning. We walked three minutes to the train station. We looked around for the ticket booth, found no automated ones, and realized the staffed ticket booth was also not open. Oh crap. We couldn't get any tickets. The train was coming in 10 minutes (at about 6 am) and we had to catch our connecting train at 7 am in the next town. A few other people were there but we knew they had tickets because in Cinque Terre you get special yellow tickets that you validate at a yellow machine for the date you want to use it. That's how we figured out we made a mistake a few days before. The ticket sale guy had asked if we wanted a one- or two-way ticket. We said one. Should have said two! The night before, the jellyfish-stung Washingtonians told us they had been told that if you're caught on a train without a ticket, it's something like a $50 fine. It's not much if you think about it but the tickets are about $2. We figured we would just get on the train and hope they wouldn't check if we had tickets. On plenty of our train rides, no one ever checked that we had tickets so we just hoped it would be our lucky day.
We boarded the train, kind of slouched in our seats for the quick 10 minute ride, and Evan freaked out a bit when a guy walked by who looked like he worked for the train. Lucky for us, no one checked and we were fine. Sorry Italy!
We made our transfer train just fine and the ride was just a couple of hours to Venice. We've been passing the time on the trains playing games on iphone/ipods, listening to music, trying to order food from the cart (we end up with cookies and really thick or really watered down hot chocolate), and listening to "The Facebook Effect" on Evan's ipod. Muy interesante.
Fun note: The internet cafe in Florence is playing "Little China Girl" by my man, David Bowie. Score for Florence.
Ok, I've run out of time yet again. We're staying with my family in Rome for the next few days so I might have more opportunities to catch up on the blog and stop forgetting things! Hope everyone is doing well!
- A + E
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