This morning we ate breakfast, got directions to the train station, and then hoofed it through the town to the train station. As we walked through we did the usual thing: we peeked in windows. We made sure to keep moving though because we were told that the first train for Riomaggiore left at 10 o' clock. Once at the train station we got our tickets and went to platform A where we saw we had a half hour wait. We decided we'd grab ourselves a Herald Tribune, the newspaper I've been using throughout this trip for my current events class (is ten times better than USA Today), and stand close to each other (it was raining and the benches along the walls were getting wet while the people standing were dry) as we each took turns reading different articles, all of us grabbing for the articles over the election and what the candidates were doing. I couldn't help laughing at how much different the candidates were. I must've looked pretty strange, standing on that platform in a pink coat reading an English Newspaper and laughing at the news. Pretty odd combination, one you definitely don't see every day here in Italy.
My laughter stopped though when I heard Ahmee and Poppy ask, "Where did our train go!?" One minute it was on the board, the next minute it was gone. We got Poppy to go check what was going on and the lady at the desk simply told him it was at 11:00, basically, that we had another hour to wait. The disappearing train act wasn't one that was initially well liked (especially by us) but then when we realized we had time to go grab hot chocolate and window shop some more we had a good time from it. At least all three of us did until Ahmee bought something, and then Poppy was a bit tense over his pocketbook the rest of the time.
When we went back to the train station the second time we got on a train at the right time. We weren't sure where it was going, but we got on anyway and asked around. We were heading in the right direction. As we sped through tunnel after tunnel and saw the sea more and more I leaned my head against the head rest and thought. This might sound odd because I never mention just plain thinking in my blogs, but in this case the contents of my thoughts I would not wish to project. I went back and forth between being lost in a daydream to being lost in serious debate (you can do that within your own head). I was surprised when it was time to get off the train. I didn't think we'd been on the train nearly long enough, but apparently we'd been on it for over an hour.
When we got off the train we found the weather to be worse in Riomaggiore than it was in Ramallo. The wind turned several umbrellas inside out, the rain lashed at us and managed to make all three of us cold within minutes.
After checking to see if the path was open to walk on - there's a walking path between 5 cute villages there- we got to the main town (got to pass through a mosaic-covered tunnel)and went into the closest restaurant to grab ourselves lunch and a hot drink. This was a well-loved restaurant. It was perfectly situated to be well-loved. It was right next to the train station, but obviously within the town thus making it the perfect place for tourists to stop and grab a "quick" bite to eat. None of us mind waiting for our food, and none of us mind waiting for anyone else to finish eating (although I have to say that my being the last one done EVERY TIME tends to bother me a bit), we like savoring our food. This time we didn't savor as much because we wanted to get out and see the town that was clinging to the mountainside. Once done we went back out into the rain and wind to traverse down to the sea. The sea was not far away, but the slick cobblestones forced us to slow down. Even though I was busy watching my step as we went down I managed to see a cool art gallery on the left. We went down in the boat yard, up around to a point where we could look at the waves crashing into the cliffs and at the rocks that looked like they'd jutted up during an earthquake (plate tectonics rule). We didn't stay long, opting to head back up into the village to check out the church and the sanctuary that had been built by a family in memory of their child. Before we got back up to the main section of town I stopped in the art gallery that was, according to the man there, "Closed, but ok for you to go in." As Ahmee and I poked around Poppy and the man started talking, the runner of the store was quite fluent in English and Ahmee and Poppy thoroughly enjoyed talking to him. Before Ahmee joined in on the conversation she pointed out a print that had my name written all over it. It was the exact same picture we'd seen walking around in the boat yards, and it was colorful, and it was full of light, and it was *sigh* really really nice. We asked if we could buy it, to which the man said yes of course (and told us that the real painting was in New York in a museum, but that the artist had grown up there). Shortly after we asked this I saw the tabby cat that was sitting in the chair in front of his desk, I crouched down immediately and started petting the cat (waking it up-but the cat didn't mind, he looooved being petted). The man told me that the cat was not for sale. After nabbing an awesome print we went up to the main village to look into shops, glance up ally's, do double takes at cars and tritrucks that dared travel in the road (tritrucks are trucks that have three wheels-they're really common in Italy), and check out the church and the sanctuary. I enjoyed the shops, ally's, gardens, and cars more than the church and the sanctuary. The church was Romanesque, meaning, it was dark. We could hard see anything in there and I think we were mostly just happy to get out of the rain by the time we got to the sanctuary.
The sanctuary wasn't our last stop in the village, we went back to the restaurant to see if we could get some hot chocolate but the suckers had just closed so we went on to the train station to sit and wait with other people. We enjoyed watching the group of English travelers who had taken 5 kids with them (two different couples), the group of singing Germans (I think... not sure), the two Italian women who chuckled at Ahmee who was huddling behind her umbrella (she was getting very cold and was using it as a wind guard-but was still shivering), and the three English girls who weren't sure exactly which train they wanted or needed (they asked Ahmee for help and Ahmee did the best she could-they got where they wanted to go by getting on the next train with us). Basically, you can have circus of people who entertain without knowing it.
We were more than happy to step on to that train though, even if we lost the groups of people who we'd enjoyed watching so much. We got out of the rain and wind, and we got to sit in really comfy seats. I just about fell asleep on the way back to Rapallo. Once back we didn't even go directly to the hotel. We grabbed hot chocolate and a chocolate... thing in a nearby restaurant (one block away from the hotel). The hot liquid not only tasted good, it felt wonderful because it warmed at least part of us up. I don't know about Ahmee and Poppy, but I know I was frozen. My shoes were soaked, my socks were soaked, and the bottom of my pants were soaked. When your feet and hands are frozen the rest of you tends to follow suit. We enjoyed watching all the women come and go (odd that the women hang out with their puppies and friends in a sweet shop while the men hang out in the restaurants), drinking our sweets, and then getting back to the hotel. I was the first one into the tub to warm myself up. I didn't wash my hair (had awesome curls that I didn't want to get rid of), just aimed the hot water at my feet. Then Ahmee and Poppy grabbed the tub to warm themselves up. All of us were happy to check our emails and then run to eat. While talking at dinner I decided that I wanted to tell Ahmee and Poppy some of the things in my blog that were about them. I apologized for not bringing things up with them directly, and then I emailed my Momma to have those things deleted out of my blog.
That night I sat up thinking again, this time about things that had come up through emails, and about the election. I decided that if McCain got elected I'd be stunned and pretty disheartened at the thinking of fellow Americans.
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