European Adventure - Day 10

So last night when Jeff was taking his Bubble Bath, Ryan and I (mostly Ryan) planned out the next day's events, so we knew exactly what we needed to do.l Of course Breakfast delayed us a little bit, but we caught the bus just outside our Hotel for the Tower.

Ryan was in Heaven on the bus. He had all these people to talk to, who couldn't leave, at least for a few minutes anyway. When we first got to the Leaning tower area, there weren't that many people. Kind of surprising. but its how we planned it I guess. That and we almost missed our stop. Good thing I was starring out the window instead of talking to 18 year old girls, or reading from the R.S. Bible.

First we went to the Baptistery. A cool little chapel with a decorative font in the middle of it. Quite a large building for what it was, but whatever. "go big or go home', right. We then went to the tower. All these sites had scheduled times when you could visit them. This was determined when you got the tickets. Its still a tower, and its still leaning. We were the first 3 in line. So we didn't have any old people or foreigners to slow us down on the way up. It was pretty cool. On the trek up you could tell which way the tower was leaning by looking at the wear marks on the stairs, and on the dirty greasy hand marks on the walls from the fat, greasy, slobbery American Tourists who obviously had to sweat their way to the top. you got a good view of the city of Pisa from the top. The stair from the top platform to the top of the bells was microscopic! I don't know how some people could fit up there. It was a lot easier going down. And when we got down there were significantly more people parading around. Tour buses don't operate as early as we do apparently.

We took some tome to take pictures of us and the tower. I just took two, one of me and the tower, and one of me flipping off the tower. There were a lot of people around doing the usual poses. I took pride in making fun of them, quite loudly too. Ryan took his time to do some street contacting while I waited for the cathedral to open. But this is when Jeff disappeared. No where to be seen. Luckily I knew that he needed a plaster statue of the leaning tower, so I figured he was some where in the row of little shops off to the side. I never knew that the search for a little statuette could take so long. Apparently picking a leaning tower statue was just like Harry Potter picking a wand! You have to pick up, inspect, and calculate each and every one that was for sale. For a second I thought that he was buying a car.

During this time I noticed a guy selling watches. Oh Boy. This could get interesting. I bargained with a few guys for an Omega watch. But soon noticed the one I wanted was flawed, so instead of walking away, I used that as a bargaining tool for another watch. I spent a little to much on a sassy looking 'Breitling' watch, but whatever, right. Not more than 5 minutes later 12 other guys by selling more watches, sunglasses, and purses swarmed the area. For a sec I tried to tell the guys to leave me alone, but I figured I'd play with them a little. After all, I still wanted an 'Omega'. So I told them what I wanted, and how much I'd spend on it. He didn't have MY watch in his folder, but he bid me follow him a distance off. He then led me a ways off, down the walkway around the corner, and over toward his scooter. I know what you're thinking, and yes, I knew this was sketchy, and I didn't follow that closely, and I didn't let to many of his Ethiopian friends to close to me. So he went over to a row of scooters, ducked down for a second, then popped back up and walked back over to me with his pockets full of Omega watches. As he showed me his wares, I kept repeating to him that I was only willing to spend 20 Bones. With every watch he started rather high, but I would have none of that. I continued to show interest in only 1 particular watch. Finally when he stopped lowering his price and was almost insulted by my tactics, I threw in ten extra Euro's to complete the deal. So now James Bond and I have something in common, an Omega. And I was not done playing yet, I just lowered my offering price. But again, that just insulted them more. Then they just started yelling at me. I even offered to sell my Breitling back to them (for an elevated price of course). But I got the last laugh, cause I had 2 super fancy watches and nothing to loose.

On the bus ride back to the hotel Plewe took special interest in talking with some hot sassy lady with a stroller. She was all sassed up, like she was going to a club later. (good thing she spoke English, he just started talking to her as if she did.) In general, I wasn't sure if the girls were 'dolling' up just for us, or if they always looked that way. But they were exotic looking, as if they all were going to a photo-shoot later.

When we got back we got our tickets to our next stop- Vernazza, one of the 5 cities of the Cinque Terra. As the day moved on, It got hotter and hotter. And I wans't really ready for it.

As we rolled into Vernazza it was very warm We had only one transfer in La Spezia, and the next train took us immediately into the side of a mountain. We spent most of the trip inside a cliff, only popping out for a second here and there for a quick glimpse of the Mediterranean Sea, and then at each town too. The views were just teasing us with what was out there, and made us excited. It was a sheer drop off cliff leading to a Black Pebble beach overlooking a gorgeous view of the Marvelous Mediterranean Sea which looked like it led to infinity.

We finally made it to our city, and weren't sure where to stay, so we just asked at a counter that sold Jeff some frozen Lemonade (a recent addiction of his I think they were laced with Nicotine, or Heroine, cause every time we stopped, no matter what city, Jeff seemed to find the 1 store that sold them in each town.) The lady ran into the back room, made a phone call, and came back out of her store to tell us that someone would be right there to get us... Perfect! That was easy. Some lady led us to a cute little villa near the station. Hows that for service.

Once we were settled in, we went right to work, stocking up on needed gelato, and water, and so on. From There we went hiking between each of the 5 Cities. Of the 5 the hikes went from hard, to difficult, to Moderate, to 'not bad', to easy. Our city, Vernazza, was number 4 on that scale, and we started by hiking to the easier end. There were some spectacular views of the mountainous coast, and Gorgeous towns. In the time it took to get from 4 to 3 I had completely run out of water, so we had to stock up in every new city. And like I said, the hikes got easier as we went. ON the way, as we were walking by the pebbly beach, Ryan ran by me and asked if I had looked down at the beach lately. Then told me that I might want a picture of it. Curious as I was, I went back a few steps and looked down toward the beach, and immediately noticed 2 people 'doing IT'. So I took a picture in between my giggling. As I went back for a second picture they were getting up to move. I guess I was giggling to loud for them. It was funny.

So as we got to the last city we jumped on the train that was supposed to wisp us back up to our city. We would go swimming, eat more gelato, then think about dong the last, and most difficult hike. But I led us to the wrong train. Either the schedule was wrong, or the Italian trains run 10 minutes late, cause I thought I was right. Good thing the conductor didn't come through, cause we would have gotten in trouble and I didn't notice this situation until I noticed the third city race by without stopping. So it looked like we were going to make that hike before our swim. It seemed like the last hike took forever. The path took us up hills, down hills, through vineyards, and groves. At some points the path was only 1 foot wide, on a seep drop-off. I was anxious to get a few pictures of our city before the sun went down. It was the picture that was on all the postcards and guidebooks, so I ended up running for most of the way. Mostly on the flat parts, but a lot of up hill too. It felt good to stretch my legs out, to dust off the ol' cylinders. It was hot and sunny and most people had their shirts off. There were also lots of crazy Germans hiking the trials too. They weren't to friendly. It was during this last hike that the boys got probably their first dose of 'Euro beach'.

I got a lot of great pictures of the whole hike. The beaches here aren't sandy, they are stony; black pebbles up to full rocks. I don't see how its comfortable, but I'm not as 'Euro' as those people.

After we finally made it back we went for a dip in the sea. It was cold and clear water and it was late enough that we were the only one sin the water, as the sun had just dipped below the horizon. while just swimming around I noticed that Jeff Kept migrating towards me. Thinking it just a coincidence, I purposefully moved away from the two. Moments later I noticed the magnetic like effect again being displayed. ( as we were getting in he was anxious to climb down the ladder at the same time as me it seemed like, I had to ask him to wait until I was done using the ladder before he did - to avoid a 'crotch in Jim's face' situation. And on the way out of the water it seemed like he only wanted to get out just as I was. Again I had to ask for a 3 foot radius 'no fly zone' anywhere close to my butt, as he tried to use the ladder exactly as I was.)

So after cooling off in the water, we changed, and then found a place to eat. I'll admit the location was the deciding factor for me, as I just wanted to cat/sit over looking the water. I thought the food was good, the atmosphere was splendid and the company was grand. It took a while for me, but I only noticed that they didn't like their food after 5 nonstop minutes of them asking to sample my beautiful Pesto Noodle dish. I think they both took the advice of the nice Australian Lady sitting next to us. They were a lovely couple from Perth Australia. They were a little bit older, but on Holiday for a few weeks touring Europe. He was cool and quieter, she had a bit more 'social lubricant' in her (i.e.Red Wine). It was a nice chat.

After they left I took a few minutes to scope out the next Gelato target. A minute after I reported back to the others these 2 sassy Canadian Chicks jumped over to the table next to us and asked if we would talk to them. And of course we did. I must have been putting off a 'vibe' as I was on the 'Gelato Prowl' and the they sensed it, and couldn't stay away. We talked for a while between the 5 of us. They worked at the whistler Tourism office up in Canada and us being from Salt Lake, we had lots to talk about, seeing that whistler is a great show destination up north, I guess.

After our long and lovely conversation we parted ways. It made sense cause they were totally trying to flirt with us and Ryan just wanted to talk about dentistry. Jeff- Hollywood, and Me- gelato. One of the chicks was on her 'divorce-moon'. So after I wandered around to take some candle-light night pic's and Ryan went to find a telephone to check his messages back home. After Jeff and I were done wandering we ran into our 'Euro-phone illiterate' friend who was having trouble figuring out strange I-talian phones, and even stranger I-tallian phone cards. In order to give a quick Euro phone demonstration I picked up a discarded I-tallian phone card and it turns out it had some money on it. Most of his calls were from Frat Buddies yelling about the Byu-Ucla football game. After his call I exclaimed how glad I was that he took the time to use this found phone card blessing for his 'important' calls. Next I suggested he call LDS link-up since he was on such a roll.