Venezia

Dear family and friends,

We arrived in Venice yesterday evening after a days worth of train-hopping and Mcdonalds-eating. Thank god our hostel was pretty easy to find, just caught a boat straight from the train station! We threw our things into our lockers and set out to wander around Venice - find out where the necessary things were (grocery store, laundry service, etc) and to find dinner. To our dismay the small island we are on (across from the main island) contains nothing of interest and no places to eat within our price range. We settled for a place just down the block, where we ate ear-shaped pasta, rock hard bread and bite size pieces of bruschetta for the low low price of 15€..AWESOME! Naht. Good thing Jenna threw out her back half way through the dinner service which made for a quick exit. She could barely rise from her chair so I helped her with her backpack and watched her try to walk out casually. While Jenna was disfigured and could barely walk, I took the liberty of signing the guest book with the comment of overpriced. Hahaha. Stiff-armed and moving only from the waist down, watching Jenna waddle up the steps of the hostel was HILARIOUS. She "chuck norrised" her back back into place once we were out of view of the public and all was back to normal. We showered and hit the sack.

We spent this afternoon wandering in the rain (yes, more rain) - Mainly wandering throughout the sidestreets and wishing that Venice were our home..(Though Cinque Terre will still remain my favourite!).

I havent had the chance to mention the rest of our Cinque Terre extravaganza! Our first day in Cinque Terre was a bit of a downer due to the rain, but around dinner the sky cleared up and we decided to head down to the water with a couple of beer to watch the sunset. We ended up meeting up with a couple of girls whom we had seen around town. We sat down at the "bar centrale"
(the only place that was open), and the girl who was travelling with her mother offered to buy some wine. We ended up drinking with the two of them, and a group of American guys also joined us. We all had a really great time and ended up staying out later than we had anticipated!

This gave us a bit of a late start the next morning, but we caught the train to Monterosso by 130 in the afternoon and began our hike. I should have you all know that from now on you can refer to me as the new Rocky, because the number of stairs we climbed was outrageous. Its been two days and I still feel the burn! The stairs up that hill were twice the heigth of an average Canadian stair and we climbed stairs (upward almost always) for the first three hours of our hike. The view was BEAUTIFUL and I would do it again, but I would probably walk the stairmaster on a regular basis before I return to Italy! Through the last two towns (Manorola and to Riomaggiore) the hike was more of a saunter, no stairs, just a short stroll. We ate dinner in Manorola - Jenna had Spaghetti and meat sauce and I had Spinach and Ricotta stuffed Ravioli with Pesto and Walnuts! MMMMMM. Cheap and delicious!

We miss Cinque Terre terribly already, but Venice is a sure treat. We are hoping the weather clears up sometime soon!

Hope all is well at home!
Love, Ash