D-Day and Brunch

As soon as PK, OK, ABe, ABo, MR, and I arrived in Monterosso al Mare, the first town in Cinque Terre, we knew we were in for a long day. While we walked around taking pictures of the beach the weather alternated between drizzling and gentle rain, but as we began the extremely long and difficult climb toward Vernazza it began to pour in earnest. We were quickly covered in mud and cold rain and sweat, and spent the following five hours trekking through the mountains (and I really mean mountains, not hills) between the five towns. Despite the immediate declaration that it was most certainly D-Day, we managed to have an amazing day and complimented MR several times on her suggestion that we spend the weekend in Cinque Terre (we weren't even sarcastic). This may have been partially due to our knowledge that we were acquiring buns of titanium* from the extraordinary amount of steps that we ended up climbing.

We stopped in Vernazza for thirty minutes to use the bathroom and revitalize ourselves with pizza, water, and cookies. The hike to Corniglia, the third city, was almost as tough as our first round, but the rain managed to peter out and we only had to deal with mud and our fear of falling off cliffs in addition to extreme exhaustion. Lunch in Corniglia turned out to be quite the ordeal, as we were served by a grumpy old man who actually refused to bring us the check until I had finished my pasta. When it became apparent that the pasta was not going to be finished, he finally brought it, but he directed a rather terrifying stink-eye at me during his walk to our table.

Our luck with the weather held for the rest of the day, and the climbs to Manarola and Riomaggiore were not nearly as difficult as the first two rounds of the trail. We arrived the train station soaked, exhausted, muddy, starving, and wishing we were spending the night in La Spezia so we could shower and change before taking the train back to Firenze. When we got back to our hotel we commandeered the public bathroom and wiped ourselves down with paper towels before changing into dry (but still dirty) clothes and trying to tamp down on our sweat smell with deodorant. We spent another hour and a half in La Spezia (the shopping mecca) while waiting for our train back, during which we should have eaten supper but did not, and then ended up on a EuroStar with our own compartment for the three hours it took to get to Florence. Because it was D-Day, we had to wait thirty minutes in Florence for our bus up to Fiesole and did not arrive back at the Villa until after midnight.

It's funny, but when I began telling people that story, they uttered exclamations of horror and sympathy; in fact, the entire day, though mildly disastrous, was one of the most wonderful I've spent in Italy. I was with a great group of people, none of whom freaked out or acted poorly, and we kept our spirits up and had a great time together. It was an adventure rather than a misadventure; where we might have been grumbling about returning back home, we were joking about how much gelato we would eat when we reached the final city. Even on the train home we talked about what a great idea it had been to go and how much we had enjoyed it.

I thought about that on my run this morning. It seems like there are always more excuses not to do something than reasons to do it. I have been trying to DO things lately, no matter what excuses I or others come up with, and have found that it is even more rewarding than I expected. I also think my time in Italy has mellowed me out a little, though I am unsure as to whether this will follow me back to the United States. This morning several of us had decided we would all go in to Florence and have brunch before exploring the Academia (where David is) and San Lorenzo's market (where cheap shopping is). Though we had tentatively planned a meeting time of 11:15, only two of us were ready then; it took about an hour for everyone to assemble and finally make it up the hill to the bus. It then took a while for us to find the place we planned to go for brunch, and then several members of the party were disappointed to discover that it was an American brunch restaurant and not an Italian one**. All in all there was quite a bit of dissatisfaction with the waiting and then the unpleasant surprise for some - but besides being hungry (I had expected to eat a little sooner), I felt very pleasant. It was raining again, which made me glad that my bag arrived after its Bologna vacation with my raincoat and umbrella, and the restaurant - Ari's Diner - was crowded so that we had to wait to be seated. There was no end to the list of things to complain about, but I had nowhere to be and nothing pressing to do, and the rainstorm was in Florence, where I was actually standing around, shivering a little, loving the smells of the wet stones mixed with whiffs of hash browns and omelets.

Being dissatisfied only seems to breed dissatisfaction, and so I am trying to avoid it in my life from now on. For the rest of the day various members of the party sulked at various times - their moods were as unpredictable as the rainstorms that were ravaging Fiesole but leaving Florence with only a few scattered sprinkles (just to throw in a tried and true metaphor). I tried to stick with upbeat crowds (that would be the sun, in case you're still trying to follow the metaphor), and had a good long contemplative look at David in the Academia while tempers cooled all around. I haggled quite well at San Lorenzo's market - at least, I drove the initial prices quoted to me down significantly. I probably still overpaid by virtue of being American, but I'm pretty sure the stuff I procured was gotten at a good price. I felt proud of myself, anyway.

Jimmy Buffett sings, "it's still a mystery to me / Why some people live like they do / So many nice things happenin' out there / They never even seen the clues". I suppose the new attitude I've adopted is somewhat unrealistic in the grand scheme of things, but after applying it for only a few weeks I am stunned by how often people box themselves in to unhappiness rather than expending a small bit of effort to find satisfaction. I have also noticed that I am impressed by people who do expend the effort, and that those are generally the people I thought were the most interesting and enjoyable to be around even before I started trying to DO.

Tomorrow is another day of class - only three left - and I desperately need to get some sleep in so that I don't miss anything. Good night -

*stronger than steel

**I am unsure how they missed that, since it was part of the plan