11/02/08 We head to Rapallo

Hacemos buena teimpo en la coche. La dia es perfecta para mi excribir y leer para mi clases. La coche es normalmente una sitio dificil para estudio. Pero yo hago la trabajar.

This day we spent most of our time driving. It was the perfect opportunity for me to write and work. I wanted to get caught up on my blogs so even though the sun was shining outside I didn't stop too long to look out the window at the mountains, the clear sky, the fields, the towns, and the many tunnels we went through. I did get a chance to look at the Carrara Mountains, where the Carrara marble is carved out of the mountain and has been for ages. The way the mountains look is incredible. You can see this zigzag of white all the way up to the top and it seems as though a huge chunk has been carved out of the mountain. When you look at the town it's easy to see that this in fact is the case. They have piles upon piles of shipping erm... boxes that were stacked higher than the buildings, all of which were full of marble (couldn't see inside but they were right next to marble yards so... kinda made an educated guess there). Michelangelo is said to have gone and picked out his marble in the quarries there. When I looked at the mountains I was reminded of Michelangelo and of two different books, one is called PILLARS OF THE EARTH, and the other is called THE PRINCESS ACADEMY. Two different books, both of them centered around stone. In PILLARS OF THE EARTH the main character, or, my favorite character's name was Jack. Jack was a genius. He loved architecture, carving, and inventing things (did this for the woman he loved). Jack, like Michelangelo, could carve masterpieces. His incredible work ended up getting him fired from cathedral work every now and then because the head would feel threatened. In THE PRINCESS ACADEMY the story is set in a stone quarry. Basically the prince needs to pick his bride from amongst these stone quarry girls, the girls had to be prepared for the work of a princess and so this academy was formed. The smallest little girl learned how to communicate like the quarriers, that is, through the rocks (tapping). This town was perfect for thinking about these two stories and those that I'd learned about Michelangelo and how he could just see the sculpture waiting within the marble (why he went and picked out his own marble).

Once we got off the main highway to head into Rapallo, the coastal town we decided we were going to stay in and had made reservations for at the Hotel de Patio, I put my things away due to the curves. Yet again we had roads where there was only one lane, where that one lane was a two-way road, where that one lane was just next to a huge cliff (and you could see the sea just beneath you crashing into the mountain side), and where when you went around curves you got three different views: one of the mountain across the way with all the picturesque buildings, one of the edge of the rocks on your right and the sea on your left, and one of what lies around the curve (through a mirror). This time I didn't panic. Scarily enough I think I'm beginning to get used to the insane Italian way of driving. I still don't want to drive though.

When we got into Rapallo we drove along the coast looking for our hotel (the map we had was pretty bad). We found it with a combination of luck and traveling skill, we like to think it's more of the later than the former. At any rate we found our hotel, we had a fun time driving around the block looking for a parking place, and then we got to go inside to let them know we made it and to lug our luggage in. We didn't have to take it up the stairs though, there was a glass elevator. Ahmee laughed at me when I saw it. I would get within inches of the glass to watch it come down or go up.

After riding up the see-through elevator we went dropped our things, and Ahmee took a nice nap (she was feeling really ill) while I typed some more and incorporated spanish into blogs. By the time I was done it was dinner time (and we'd arrived at 4-5 o' clock). We went down to the restaurant and got to order our things. Poppy and Ahmee both loved their dinners, and I have to say that mine was excellent as well, but it wasn't the food that I liked most about this dinner, it was how Ahmee spoke to the waiter in Italian. Or at least, spoke a few phrases. She'd already spoken and communicated with others by using a combination of Spanish and Italian. The results are always good. This time however the waiter was especially glad that she could speak a bit of his language. I think he gets tired of hearing things mispronounced, I know I would.

Shortly after dinner we turned in for the night, knowing that we had a lot we had to do the next day.