cinque terre.

our next stop was along the coast of italy, cinque terre. gettin' there was no piece of cake. i would have much rather have eaten cake then what we had to do. but we made funny memories, that's for dang sure.

first, we miss our train to la spezia from rome. the one we wanted was full, so that put us getting to la spezia around midnight. we get on the next available train, and it was the first time the five of us got split up...bec and jenn in one cabin on the train and me, meg, and kyle on another. some adventures on the train, being with italian speaking people who told us they did not speak english...come to find out they do. a gypsy woman we later named mama buying me, meg, and kyle a water, giving us snacks, and trying to tell us her life story while signing and speaking italian, and a sock salesman going from cabin to cabin named pepe who fell in love with my friend becca. he put socks on her feet and then sealed the whole thing with a big ole peck on the lips! funny.

we finally arrive to la spezia which is a train station 15 minutes from where we needed to be. italy likes to have train strikes so of course they had one that night, and we couldn't get to where we were going. so the kind police officer informed us the city shuts down by midnight, and we were allowed to sleep outside his office. how nice. we took shifts on the dirty, cold floor of the la spezia train station. not my best nights sleep, but probably my most memorable night!

we get there SUPER early the next morning and go straight to sleep. we wake up in time for a hike to the next city over. it was such a fun hike and our reward was gelato and the beach. we relaxed all day on the beach. later that night, we met this sweet couple who had been married a year. we swapped stories and just hung out all night in the square while watching/playing soccer with the locals. i think we would all agree it was our favorite night of the trip! i think i'll go back...who's with me??