Meryl McFarland

I was surprised at how quickly I fell in love with Cinque Terre, Italy. It began with seeing these flowers right when I got off the train.

By the way, the train had a layover in this building, where Ale and I will meet Brenna in a couple days!

Cinque Terre

The name "cinque terre" translates into English as "five lands." It is a small area off the Northwest coast of Italy and it includes 5 little towns. We are staying in Monterosso for 3 nights.

My new favorite flower!

Home For Now

This is our apartment! The woman who rents it out is an American who came to Italy 4 or 5 years ago to visit a friend from college. While here, she met her boyfriend and then she eventually moved here and has been here ever since.

I'll spare you the details, but basically it's a miracle that we get to stay here because some other plans fell through. It is so cute!

This is a little loft! Don't worry, we fully plan on having a tea party there tomorrow.

Food
I am sick. Heavy sinuses, tender throat; watery, itchy, swollen eyes. Pretty sure it's just allergies but I've never had them this bad. It's annoying, but I'm safe and happy and in Italy so it's not stopping me from doing anything!

Ale brought me breakfast in bed this morning. Nutella and bread. Classic Europe if you ask me. Sadly, we will not be keeping the Tasmanian Devil cup (unless someone requests that we bring it back).

Another classic European sight is this:

Tables set out by the street, owner standing by the door to greet people (aka talk people into eating there), menus in multiple languages. Restaurant like this are everywhere.

I ordered a pizza with four toppings from this restaurant, and this is what I got:

Separated toppings?! It was way good, except for the olives that still had huge pits in them.

Ale ordered pesto lasagna and this is how it looked:

It tasted much better than it looks, but I thought it was interesting how it was made.

Beach
The person from whom we're renting the apartment manages a private beach (well...her Italian boyfriend does and she helps). We spent a lot of time there today! It was nice for me because I wasn't feeling so great, and it was nice for Ale because she did a ton of reading and tanning.

View from our beach chairs.

I can't get over how much I love street performers!

There were lots of men trying to sell sunglasses, and ladies trying to sell massages.

A woman discovered a dead jellyfish in the water and pushed it onto the shore with a stick and it ended up right by our beach chairs. I poked it with a rock and it was not jelly-like at all! It was very hard and stiff.

Maybe it's something else, but we think it's a jellyfish.

It was small, but lots of people stopped to look at it. We had prime seats for people-watching AND dead-jellyfish-watching.

After looking at it for a while, I think she got scared.

We got new bracelets. High five!

I took this picture to see what my hair looked like, and I kinda liked it. So...there you go.

Gorgeous, right? Right. Tomorrow we hope to visit other cities in Cinque Terre!

Ciao and Loch Sloy!

Venice, Italy.

118 small islands, most of them connected by bridges. Kinda like Amsterdam, but a little more spread out and a lot less bikes. And no Stephan.

This is the 3rd world heritage site we've been to! The first was Amsterdam and the second was Hallstatt.

I can't remember seeing a car since I got here. Transportation is done in two ways: by foot or by boat...even for the police! We took a water taxi to get from the train station to our hostel.

This shot was taken from my hostel window. There are waaayy more musicians and painters in this town than any other I've been to. It's amazing!

I absolutely love the musicians that play randomly throughout the day. I'm also convinced that accordion players are some of the most talented musicians out there. If you want to disagree, then I'm ready to debate about it! Unless your name is Trevor Matthews because you'd for sure win.

On our first day here, Ale and I were tired from the overnight train so we took a nap right by the sea.

It was needed and it felt so nice to be warm!

Ale and I are having a competition to see who can get the most pictures of the other person sleeping. I'll get her back soon!

World Boat Race

Venice hosts a yearly event called the Vogalonga Regatta. It's a pretty big deal, and we found out about it after we were already in Venice! Rowers from all over the world come to Venice for the race.

Some people have lots of team spirit. It reminds me of Ragnar.

Holland! I've been there!

France! I've been there!

America! I've been there!

Food

Ale and I left the hostel to find our first Italian meal in Italy. I wanted to check out the restaurants close to our hostel, but Ale wanted to leave the nest a little further. So we wandered around trying to find a place to eat that would cost less than 25 euro per plate. It was a very leisurely and enjoyable walk, but it took us a long time to find a restaurant. The food was worth the walk.

When we were finished eating, we had no idea where we were, so we asked someone to point to where we were on the map. When he found our location, he said there was already an x on the map at that spot. We thought that was a little weird, but thanked him anyway. After he left, we turned around and took a few steps and realized that we had been eating right next to our hostel the whole time!

To quote Brenna, "gelato is life." I have been in Italy for 2 days, and I've already had gelato 6 times! Don't tell my health students.

THE BEST mint ice cream I've ever had in my life.

Ale introduced me to gnocchi. So good!

Rialto Bridge

The pokey things at the bottom of this picture are on a lot of buildings in Europe, especially historic buildings, to prevent birds from hanging out there.

View from the bridge.

Saint Mark's Campanile
It's basically a huge clock tower. It has 5 bells, each with a specific purpose (the end of a work day, an execution, etc.). Ale and I went to the top of the tower.

Saint Mark's Basilica

You can see the roof of the church in the picture above. I love all the domes! Picture-taking was not allowed inside the basilica, but it was very gold and beautiful. Because the ground in Venice is so watery and unstable, over years the floor of the basilica has become uneven. Our hostel is the same way, and many buildings in Amsterdam as well because the ground is similar over there.

Mom and Dad would love all the marble!

St. Mark's square is famous for all the pigeons. It makes me want to read Wringer again!!!

The Best Part About Venice

My favorite thing we've done in Venice is free: getting lost. There are so many streets, bridges, and alleyways here, it is very easy to get lost. We have gotten lost a lot, but we've never been worried about it because it's so fun and we know that we're never too far from the hostel.