Stop One:
Iceland
It all started as a concept. We would go visit the villages
of Cinque Terre in Italy. Brad had mentioned that this is where he wanted to
go. I’d never heard of it before that. Then as long as we were so close, we
would also go to Rome. The different perspectives were interesting. When someone
asked Deb where we were going, she’d say Iceland, when they asked Brad, he
would say Italy.
Deb mentioned she had been to Iceland three times and had
never gotten out of the airport, so we included an Iceland layover. Then as we
were booking it, we saw that it was less expensive to go to Paris and then
Rome, instead of booking it straight to Rome. Now we had Paris on the list
also.
We talked about booking it for a few weeks, but it didn’t
get done. Finally, we met all together, and with a phone, two desktops, and a
laptop, we began booking the trip. It was very late and not all the details
were set, but we had gotten to most of the flights and some of the trains. With
our collective brains all fried, we went home. Over the next few days, we
messaged each other, “I booked this,” or “I booked that.” Luckily, we didn’t
book the same things.
I had sold a car to a man, and he insisted that I should go
to Juba restaurant down in Tukwila. It had some of the best food anywhere. In
fact, he was going to get his buddy, the owner, to give us a free meal. Free is
always good, so I agreed. It was a North African restaurant near the airport. The
four of us were the only non-North Africans in there. I just knew they were all
thinking, “What are they doing here?” but the owner was friendly, and the food
was good.
Brad and I had a hard
time getting through TSA, because he forgot to dump his his water out before
entering the line. It was good we had allowed extra time. We had also allowed
extra time to get down there, but traffic was surprisingly good. That’s not
usual for Seattle. We waited for three hours for the flight, and then boarded
the plane.
A couple of things I
really like about Iceland Air is they give you a water bottle as you board, and
the other thing is they have entertainment right there on the back of the
seats. You can watch movies and zombie out, forgetting about how cramped you
are in the seat. Even at that, they give you a hair more room than other
airlines. I didn’t get to sleep except for a few minutes here and there. I
can’t sleep on planes. The effort makes me more frustrated than anything. I
looked over at my wife, she’s sound asleep almost the whole flight, only to
wake up briefly when the cart comes by so she can get a drink. I think she has
some built-in radar, because she wakes up seconds before they reach her and is
sound asleep again, right after she finishes her snack and drink.
The most amazing
thing I saw on the flight is Greenland. It’s been cloudy every time we’ve flown
over it in the past, but this time there were clear skies. It looked like
Canada as we flew over the western edge. It wasn’t until the middle that you
could see the ice fields. The eastern side of it was the most amazing. It was
like an iceberg factory. The massive things filled the bays as they headed out
into the North Atlantic. If they were large enough to look big at thirty
thousand feet, they must be huge. They looked like islands, only moving.
Our landing went
better than the last time we were there. The wind wasn’t buffeting the plane.
We arrived at the terminal and asked where to find the rental cars. The lady
behind the desk is grumpy. I know she’s answered the same question about a
thousand times, but I’m new here and I only asked the question once.
It’s a bus ride over
to the rental car agency and then a long wait to get to the counter and a
longer wait at the counter. By the time we head out, it’s after eleven in the
morning. It took two hours to get our luggage and car. We took off toward
Reykjavik.
The countryside is
rock and moss. You do not mess with the moss, because it breaks down the rocks
to create soil and they have very little of that in Iceland. Small towns dot
the landscape as we make our way to the city.
I don’t know what I
was expecting culinary wise, when I arrived in the city, but hot dogs and
hamburgers weren’t it. That, however made up most of the available restaurants.
We met a man from America at the local burger joint, and he said he’d tried
fermented sharks’ fin at one of the fancier restaurants. It was expensive and
he wouldn’t recommend it.
We had the best hot
dog on the planet, according to Bill Clinton, at a stand in the center of the
town. We hated it. I did try lamb stew at another place. It’s Iceland’s
national dish. I liked that.
We finally found a
place to park the car so we could take our walking tour. No easy feat ,I have
to admit. The tour started in a plaza nowhere near where the description said
it started, but after asking two or three people, we found it.
A cute blonde Viking-looking
woman led the tour around the city. Interesting tidbits I took from this were,
Iceland has no army. It has a small coast guard with only
three small ships. In school two of the mandatory classes are English,
swimming, and knitting.
After the tour we headed to the Harpa hall and concert
center for a brief stop. There is also a Viking ship sculpture down the street
from there. There was a problem with the rental car after that, so we were on
foot for the rest of our time in Iceland.
Brad was nice enough to go buy us some pizza for dinner as
the rest of us relaxed our poor tired feet and legs.
In the morning, we walked down to the corner to find
breakfast, only to find the restaurant was closed. We made our way back to the Airbnb
and devoured all the snack food we had brought with us. Reykjavik isn’t very
walkable if you’re on the edge of town like we were.
Brad booked the Golden Circle tour and had the foresight to
schedule our pickup at the church next door to us. It was the same church that
rang its bells at 7:15 in the morning. The rest of us were complaining about
it, but Deb’s response was, “What bells?” She had managed to sleep through it.
The Golden Circle tour was amazing. We saw geysers, hot
pools, the geothermal area when the city gets its hot water, and even the pipe
that brings it to them. The water only loses one degree of temperature on its
seventy-four-mile journey to the city, winter and summer.
After visiting the thermal fields, we went to see a
waterfall. We stood in line to use the pay bathroom only to find out the gift
shop / restaurant next door had a free one in better condition. There was a mix
of salads, soups, sandwiches at the gift shop and since breakfast had been a
bust, we ate. I had the lamb stew, Iceland’s national dish. It was good. The
waterfall was amazing. It had two steps, the last of which ended in a narrow
valley. You couldn’t see down there very well because of all the spray coming
up.
We saw where the two tectonic plates were pulling apart.
There is the North Atlantic plate moving towards Greenland and the European
Plate moving towards Europe. A valley formed because of it, about two miles
across and it grows a couple of centimeters a year. Every earthquake more
cracks appear. These are filled in gradually with rock or water.
We went to geysers. I had been to Old Faithful as a kid, but
we didn’t get this close to it as we did that day. Brad even got a great shot
of it in slow motion. Then we hit the Secret Lagoon. This one is freshwater. The
Blue Lagoon is saltwater and is dyed blue. It is supposed to have healing
properties compared to the Secret Lagoon but is also more famous and crowded.
We did enjoy this one and our tired legs loved the hot water.
Iceland’s hot water is piped in seventy-five miles from the
geothermal fields to Reykjavik. Their prison system is small so when convicted
it could take up to a couple of years to find you a cell. Iceland has the
purest of the Scandinavian languages, the others have been corrupted. They do
not let horses that have traveled outside the country to ever come back. The
horses are the original bloodline that the Vikings brought to the island.
The tour was awesome. He dropped us back off at the church
afterward. We made our way down to the restaurant we had tried to eat at the
day before. It was open this time. Dinner cost 14,952 Icelandic kronor. It
sounded like a lot.
The airport shuttle came to our door the next morning and
took us directly to the airport. We did breakfast there.
Stop Two:
Paris
Paris wasn’t part of the original plan. We were looking for
a place to overnight in. It's less expensive if you fly in and then book a
separate flight the next morning, rather than go directly to your destination.
So, we had to pick a spot. When I mentioned that Paris was a possibility, Brad glommed
on to that.
We had less than 24 hours there, but we accomplished an
amazing amount of stuff in that time. After we settled in at the hotel, we got
an Uber to the Arc de Triomphe. We were dropped off across
the street from it. There was no way we were going to cross that street either.
Traffic weaving in and out of the circle. It must have been ten lanes across,
but there are no lane markings, so it was more like a free-for-all. I think
most of those cars were going around and around just for the fun of it.
Luckily, for us, there is an underground stairway to it. The thing is a lot
wider than it looks in the pictures. There’s an arch on each side with two more
connecting them. All sorts of carvings on it.
Miranda had
come up with a great idea to go there first because the Eiffel Tower is tall
and would be easier to find. After the arch, we walked down the Champs-Elysees
and found a spot to eat. The tables outside the restaurant was packed so we opted
to go inside, as the was barely anyone in there. It worked out, because the
servers paid more attention to us joked with us. He even made us a special raspberry-mint
drink to try.
Then it was
off through the streets of Paris in the gathering darkness to find the Eiffel
Tower. I hadn’t realized it was right next to the Seine River. There were tour
boats going up and down the river when we crossed the bridge. Vendors with
their blankets out all looked like they were all selling the exact same souvenirs.
We debated
back and forth about what to do. Brad wanted to go up, but the elevators had an
hour and a half-line. We were about to give up, when we found a shorter line.
When we paid for our ticket, we jumped in the elevator. They jammed us in
pretty tight. Deb found herself pushed against the side by a woman with large
breasts. Miranda became claustrophobic and hopped out at the last second.
We toured
the second level. All of Paris lay before us. I could see Norte Dame in the
distance. It still looked burnt-out hulk. I don’t think they’ve started the
renovation. The river lay below us along with all the sights of Paris. It was
great.
Brad was
getting worried about Miranda down there all alone in the darkness, so we
walked down the steps instead of waiting forty-five minutes for an elevator.
680 steps we went down. There were signs along the way to encourage you. “You’re
halfway, keep going.” My legs were tired before the descent; they were killing
me afterward.
We called
an Uber to pick us up. He didn’t, or wouldn’t, speak a word of English. I don’t
know what the speed limit is in Paris, but I’m sure he was going twice as fast
as it. We arrived back at the hotel, tired, but happy.
The next
morning, we called up another Uber to take us to the Chateau Versailles. This
is where Louis the fourteenth and Napoleon called home. The place went on and on with each hallway
more ornate than the one before it. We saw Marie Antoinette’s bedroom, the hall
of mirrors and another hallway where pictures of all of France’s important
victories were painted.
The outside
gardens seem to spread out for miles. I think even with all our walking that
day, we only saw about a tenth of the gardens. Looking at the grounds after I
came home, I see that I missed the dragon fountain. That would have been fun to
see.
We took
another Uber back to the hotel to collect our things and get to the airport.
Miranda
said the Uber driver seemed to be distracted. I rode in the front seat and saw
what he was doing. He was watching YouTube videos as he drove through the busy
Paris streets. It was all bricklaying instructions. Really? I think if he was
going to risk our lives, he could at least be watching interesting videos.
At the
airport we ended up at a satellite gate far away from the madness we ran into
when we flew into Paris. We even had to walk about a block from the airport
commuter train to get there, under a road and then to the gates. It had about
four gates was all and a couple of kiosks. We found sandwiches to eat and fill
up on water after we went through security.
Stop Three: Rome
Rome was
easy in comparison. There was a foosball game between the carousels in baggage
claim, so Brad and I played until the bags started coming down the line.
The Airbnb
lady, ‘Lucy,’ arranged a driver to pick us up and take us to the apartment. He
had a sign with my name on it when we came out of baggage claim.
We piled in
the car, it easily fit all of us and our luggage. Some of the Ubers had cramped
back seats. We headed to the apartment. A friend of the owner met us at the
Airbnb when we arrived. The driver had called ahead so the man was at the
corner when the driver parked.
He showed
us the room, explained, in broken English, that Lucy was in Lebanon, but we
could call her with a phone app if we needed anything.
The
elevator was interesting. It was a cage with a cable on it, basically. If
you’ve ever seen the show Petticoat Junction, it was like that. None of us
really wanted to ride in it, so we in stuffed our suitcases, hit the button,
then took the one flight of stairs, then pulled them back out when they arrived
at the second floor. The room faced a courtyard. It was a fun apartment, two
large bedrooms, each with its own bathroom. Every room had its own a/c unit.
Exploring
the area, we found a subway stop a half a block from the apartment. No need to
take Ubers as we did in France. Our first subway ride didn’t go so well. When
we tried to jump on, it was crowded, and the doors shut a lot faster than we
thought they would. Deb ended up getting shut in the doors. Someone pushed the
red button for us, and the doors opened again. Deb and I hopped on.
Miranda
told us about a restaurant her sons-in-law’s brother had eaten at on his
mission. He said it was the best in Rome. We went where we thought it was but
ended up going in the opposite direction. Stopping to ask directions, after a
lot of walking, we talked to a shop owner and his wife. It was dark by this
point.
He had very
broken English, but he had google maps on his phone. Our phones didn’t work
without wifi. He pointed in the direction google maps told him it was, and she
would say, “No, no, that is a silly way to go.” Then she would amend his
directions, with landmarks for us to follow.
Then he
would give us the next direction, and she would say “No, no,” again. Following her
instructions, we headed straight down the street several blocks, turned left at
the obelisk, around a corner and down an alleyway. In the middle of the
alleyway was the restaurant. We sat inside, as the outside was full. When we
ordered, we ask him to take a picture of us, so he took a selfie with us in the
background.
Brad
ordered pizza, but when he went to cut it with a fork, the owner wagged his
finger at him.
It was a
great place to eat and as we made our way back to the subway station, we found
a gelato place on the corner, so we stopped to partake. It was late by that
point, but almost everything was open.
We made it
back to the room and went to bed.
In the
morning, we found the a/c unit in the kitchen was leaking and making a puddle
on the floor, but it was a warm day, so we didn’t turn it off, just wiped up
the puddle. We again hit the town, but nothing was really open that early, so
we found a McDonalds, two blocks away. It wasn’t very well marked, we pasted it
twice before asking a utility worker where it was. We were right next to it at
the time.
It’s like
when you ask a store clerk where an item is that you’ve walked up and down an
aisle three times trying to find it, only to discover it right behind you.
We ate a
couple of egg McMuffins and then hit the road again. Today, we had a hop on hop
off tour of the city. Only we had mixed directions of where to actually pick it
up. After waiting at a corner a few minutes, we walked down to the Colosseum.
I don’t
know if it was us, or it’s something the Romans do, but every time we asked for
directions, we were given the first one or two steps in a series of ten or
twelve. “Go down to the corner and turn left,” was one set of directions we
were given by a bus driver. It was far more complicated than that as our
destination was blocks and blocks away and not in a straight line from the
corner.
We managed
to find the hop on hop off bus despite the vague directions this time. The line
for the bus was something else. The bus company had an angry man standing at
the beginning of each line. His job was to yell at the people waiting to get
on. “Don’t skip the line,” was his main saying. If you moved an inch, he would
say it again. It was a problem when the two buses were full in front of us and
another bus arrived behind us. “Go get in that line,” the guy barked.
The man who
was in front of the line was now five or six back, so he complained. “Be lucky
you’ll get on the bus,” the angry man replied.
We finally
stepped off at the main bus station, train station. Making a mental note of
this since we would need the train station the next day, we headed out on a
quest to find Trevi Fountain as it was closed the last time we were in Rome.
We stopped
at a bakery to grab lunch. They had wifi there so I looked up the fountain
while we were eating. When we left the shop, I closed google maps and found I
couldn’t get it working again, so I ran back down to the bakery, reestablished
the connection and as long as I didn’t close the app, it pointed us in the
direction of the fountain. Brad had asked a bus driver where it was and got the
usual answer, “Go to the corner and turn left.”
It was twelve
blocks away and there was more than one corner. Even when we were near, there
was no indication of where it was. No signs or anything. You turned a corner,
like all the other corners you turned and there it was. Amazing!
We took
pictures and threw coins in the fountain. It was hard to get right up to it, so
you had to throw the coins between the tourists.
At one
subway station, Brad said, “This is the train we need to take,” three of us
managed to hop on before he replied, “Oh, wait, we need to go the other way.”
Two of us managed to hop off before the door closed. I wasn’t one of them. I
sat there thinking, do I go down to the next stop and come back? If I try that,
or they going to come after me and we pass going in opposite directions? The
possibilities were endless, but I remembered the red button and pressed it. The
door opened and I hopped out.
One thing that was frustrating is that one of the subway
stations was closed. Normally I wouldn’t care that a subway station in Rome was
closed, but this one was right where we wanted to be, so we had to take the
next station and walked the six or seven uphill blocks to get back there. We
finally figured out that if we took the station before it, instead of after, we
would walk downhill instead of up, and that made life easier.
By the end of our stay, we were getting around Rome really
well. That night, we headed off in the direction of the Rome Temple. It isn’t
easy to get to as there are no subway stops within miles of where it's at. We
flagged down a cab.
The cab drivers seem to me to be friendlier than the Uber
drivers. The Uber drivers barely talked
to us. The taxi driver that took us to the temple talked the whole way. Ok, it
was in Italian, but he talked at least. If it sounded important, we would get
our google translates out and figure out what he was saying and answer him as
best we could.
The temple was great. We walked around the grounds admiring
the five-hundred-year-old olive trees and the visitor’s center. We also took in
a session while we were there.
Rome was over too soon. We arrived back to the apartment
only to find the a/c in the kitchen made another small puddle by the front
door. We wiped it up. We were good guests; we didn’t eat a single meal in the
apartment. That night, around two am, the a/c unit above my head started
dripping cold water on my face. I turned it off, but it didn’t solve the
problem, so I turned it back on and moved over.
We packed up in the morning and headed down to the subway.
If there was a rush hour in Rome, this was it. Our fellow passengers were
unhappy to see us trailing our suitcases and backpacks. We pushed our way on,
even though there was not a lot of room. Everyone was well squished. One lady
tried to get out at the next stop, but she was too far in and couldn’t get
around us.
Luckily, she didn’t yell at us. We wouldn’t have understood
her anyway, but nobody wants to get yelled at. To the relief of everybody, we
exited the next stop and followed the signs to the train station. The station
was huge, supporting dozens of trains. Departure signs, like those in airports,
told us what platform our train was on. We had a few minutes to kill, so we
looked for somewhere to eat breakfast. Most of them were closed, but there was
a McDonalds, across the street from the station, so we ate there. It was so not
Italian, but there doesn’t seem to be too much open for breakfast.
The bathrooms were interesting. The walls were glass and you
had to have a train ticket, or a Euro coin, to get in. Men to the left and
women to the right. Only the walls on the stalls afforded you any privacy.
We jumped on the train and it wasn’t thirty minutes later
that all my travel companions were fast asleep. I sat there, jealous. I can’t
sleep on trains or planes, but I saw some wonderful scenery. We passed
Civitavecchia. It’s the cruise port closest to Rome. There were two ships in
the harbor. I do love cruise ships, but I prefer to be on them than look at
them at a distance. Still, I enjoyed it.
Stop
Four: Cinque Terre
The train tracks followed the coast, then headed into the
countryside. We went through Pisa and then drew closer to the coast again. La
Spezia is a coastal town and the gateway to Cinque Terre, the goal of this
trip. The other places were, “While we’re in the area, let’s do this also,”
places.
We arrived at the train station at La Spezia and hopped off.
We checked out how to get tickets to Cinque Terre. It’s five cities that butt
up to cliffs and the coast. The area is an Italian national park. You buy a ticket
to the park as well as the train at the same time. We decided to wait until the
next morning to buy the tickets.
Rolling the suitcases behind us, we made our way to the Airbnb.
Wandering the streets, we managed to go right to it. Gabriella and her nephew
were there at the front door to meet us. Her first question was, “What took you
so long?” We didn’t think we had taken that long.
The nephew translated everything Gabriella said. It was him
I had messaged back and forth and not her. The place was our biggest apartment
yet. It had a huge kitchen as well as a large living room and a balcony that looked
out over the street.
The people we talked to in the visitor’s center of the
temple said there was a North African gang that robbed the Airbnbs in La
Spezia, but the lock on the door was the most solid I had ever seen. It was a
deadbolt times five. There were five thick metal shafts that went through the
jam. No one was getting through that door, even if you made through the locked
door that faced the street. There were two bathrooms but only one shower, so we
had to take turns at night. It wasn’t a problem at all.
Again, we had planned on going to the market and grabbing a lot
of food and eating breakfast and lunch at the apartment, but we never made it
to the market because its hours didn’t sync with our schedule. We walked around
La Spezia that first night. Our legs were tired from Rome, but we walked down
to the waterfront, even getting some food at a bakery. It was midday, and as we
ate at the benches outside, the owner locked up and as he passed us, he put his
hands on one side of his head and closed his eyes indicating he was going home
to take a nap.
We ran straight into a street shopping fair, complete with
husband bench, where all the men hang out waiting for the wives to finish shopping.
It’s funny to see some things are the same everywhere. On our wanderings around
town. We walked around the shopping area and then and found some dinner. I have
to say the Italian food in Italy is better than the Italian food in the states.
Night had fallen by this point, so it was back to the
apartment.
In the morning we walked up to the train and bought tickets
to Cinque Terre. The nice thing is it gives you unlimited travel that entire
day. We went to the furthest city, Monterosso. It has a large beach that extends
a long way along the coast. It is by far the most level of all the cities. A large cliff divides the two parts of the
town, but there is a tunnel that connects them. We walked along the beach and
enjoyed the view of the sea.
Miranda said, “We’re going to walk to the next city. It’s
only a two-hour walk.”
I looked at a wide path that led around the next cliff.
“Sounds fun, we’ll go with you.” Big mistake. The nice trail ended just around
the corner and it started into a mountain goat trail after that. Hundreds of
uneven steps led up through the terraced grapevines. Deb and I were panting by
the time we got up there. One person told us we were through the worst of it.
He lied. Every time we headed down a few steps, there were twice as many to greet
us up the next ridge. I must have looked like a mess as I stood in front of yet
another set of stairs hewn out of the rocks.
“Here, I’ll take your pack,” a friendly voice said. I didn’t
know who he was, but I took him up on it. I guess when he got to the top, he
asked Brad, who was waiting for us, why he wasn’t helping his father with the
hike.
Sweating and sick, I trudged on. Deb and I hadn’t planned on
a hike that day and didn’t have any water on us. Also, I could feel my blood
sugar tanking, and began to wonder if I was going to die on that trail. I was
drenched in sweat and went around the next ridge with high hopes of seeing a
town around the next corner, only to be disappointed over and over again.
One man going to opposite directions took one look at me and
asked, “Are you okay?”
“Save yourself, go back now!” I responded. He laughed and
kept walking.
Brad and Miranda had run up ahead, but they waited for us as
we drew close to the town. The estimate of two hours was for fit people; it
took Deb and me around three and a half. Finally, Vernazza was under my feet.
Deb bought us something to drink, a granita. It was a lifesaver, both for the
blood sugar and the dehydration. Brad and Miranda decided to walk the trail
between the next two cities also, but Deb and I took the train. I took a dip in
the Mediterranean to cool down before we left. Miranda’s fit bit said 22,000 steps
and 65 flights of stairs on that trail.
We arrived at the next train station and walked towards the
town of Corniglia. We were stopped at the base of the steps leading up to the
town. Four hundred and forty of them to be exact. No way, we thought, so
we made our way back to the train station. We didn’t know there was a bus, but
it didn’t matter, because we had agreed to meet them at the station. The
bathrooms at the train stations were interesting. There is an attendant there
who has you show your ticket or charges you a Euro for the use of the facility.
If the person takes too long, they go in and clean the bathroom. It made for
long lines. That would be a really crappy job.
The hour and a half walk took them, with a couple of stops,
just over two hours. They rushed down all those steps to get back to us faster
and Miranda messed up her knee in the process. I felt bad.
We made our way back to La Spezia at that point. Dinner was
at an outdoor café. I was brave and tried the sardines. They weren’t the canned
ones we have in America, but fresh. It was okay, but I watched Brad eat his
ravioli and wished I had ordered it instead.
I slept well that night. The next day, we went to church in
the morning. It was a small branch, and everyone greeted each other with kisses
on the cheek. The missionaries were both from the states, so they could at
least tell us what was going on. The headsets they gave us, to listen along in
English, didn’t work, so we took them off and listened to the Italian version.
Surprisingly, we could at least get the gist of what they were saying. After
church, we headed over to Porto Venere by boat. The boat also goes to Cinque
Terre, but only during calm seas and there were no calm seas that day.
We climbed through the ruins of a castle and visited the
narrow streets of the town. When we arrived back in La Spezia, we took a bus to
the train station and went to the towns we had missed the day before, Manarola and
Riomaggiore. Riomaggiore had celebrated a wine festival recently, because the
signs were still there and there were a lot of wilted grape vines all over the
town. There was a long tunnel between the station and the town. The streets
were steep to climb. I wanted to see the lower part of the town, so I took the
stairs under the train tracks to look at them. The others waited for me.
Manarola was the town with all the steps between the station
and the town. Luckily, there was a drove to the town from the train. We wandered
around here for a while. The streets were super narrow, and the edge of town
was a seventy-foot cliff down to the water. As long as we were there, we went
back to Monterosso and rented a couple of beach chairs. I call it a beach, but
it wasn’t. It was a bunch of small rocks that hurt to walk on. Brad and I
braved the painful beach and made our way out to swim in the sea.
This had its drawbacks as Brad was stung by a jellyfish. He
was done and made his way back to the beach chairs. I tried to swim to the
shore, but I, too, was stung. I retreated slower after that. I stopped swimming
only to come face to face with another jellyfish. I splashed at it, only
sending it closer to a couple of Italians. “Medusa!” one of them said, and they
left. I made my way to the shore.
We stopped in Vernazza, my favorite of the Cinque Terra
towns, to eat.
We got up early in the morning to catch a four am train. We
traveled through Cinque Terre but didn’t stop except for a brief one in Vernazza.
The train left the coast and headed inland. It was a pretty view of the Italian
countryside.
Milan’s train station was almost the size of Rome’s train
station with trains everywhere. We had a bit of confusion there. We were taking
another train to the airport but couldn’t find it. Turns out, it wasn’t there
yet. It arrived and we boarded quickly.
I got to see an overview of Milan, but it would have been
nice to see the center of the city and not just that part next to the train
tracks. We arrived at a modern, well-laid-out airport. As we were waiting in
line, a uniformed woman came up and started interviewing us. She had a
clipboard, so I guess she was official. Anyway, you couldn’t go to the ticket
counter unless you had your interview. Turns out I lied to her, because later
on Deb asked where my computer was. I told her it was in the suitcase. “Don’t
you remember the lady asked if you had a computer in the suitcase?” Sometimes
I’m hard of hearing, because I didn’t know she’d said that.
Once we arrived at the counter, the ticket agent was having
a hard time. She couldn’t get her computer to work. We saw several people come
and go while we waited, finally the agent next door printed our boarding passes
while our agent restarted her computer. As soon as the computer rebooted, it
began spitting out multiple copies of our boarding passes and luggage tags.
Gotta love computers.
We grabbed something to eat there and headed to our gate.
That’s when the announcements started. “We will be departing a few minutes
late.” We didn’t even start boarding until after we should have departed and
were an hour late taking off. On the big screen in front of the cabin was our
flight details. Flight time: 12 hours and 6 minutes. Ugh. I tried sleeping, I
tried watching a movie, nothing worked, it was a long flight.
We landed in Los Angeles. They bused us to baggage claim and
then we had to go through security again. I guess TSA doesn’t want you to miss
out on that experience when you come back to the United States. We took off
running to the gate our next flight was leaving from. Brad ran off ahead and I
let him go. I don’t run as fast as him. It was all in vain. We missed the
flight anyway. Luckily, there was another one leaving in an hour and a half, so
we caught our breath as we waited.
It was a wonderful trip. We walked fifty miles in the course
of nine days. No wonder my legs feel tired. We saw amazing things. I’ve
traveled with Brad and Miranda several times now. They are good people. It was
fun hanging out with them for those ten days.
