Day 22 - Shopping in Milano

I woke up feeling like crap. Wait, I didn't really wake up because I didn't sleep! Even at 6am in the morning, the air was muggy and sticky. To make things worse, I got an SMS from my dad early in the morning saying my Grandfather is very sick and my mum has flown back to China to see him. Fortunately, he's feeling much better now. But getting the news after a night of no sleep was a real blow to my mood. Although it was still quite hot, I can tell you, a freezing cold shower at 7:30am doesn't make you feel any better. I think I had hypothermia from that shower. I think this is the fastest we've ever gotten ready in the morning. We went downstairs for breakfast, and that is when we realised that this "breakfast" is worse than the "breakfast" we got at La Spezia. Atleast we got a fresh crossiant at La Spezia. This place was prepackaged "crossiants". Or some type of stale dough made into a horn shape. The coffee was also terrible. Not unexpected considering it came in one of those instant coffee machines.

After my slice of kraft single with unknown bread "breakfast", I gave up on the food altogether. We grabbed our stuff and headed off towards the train station. On the way, I discovered an asian grocery store! How I miss my asian food! I nice big bowl of steaming rice and even canned pickles would've made a better breakfast than what we just had. We found our way to the tourist office at the train station to see if there is a shopping outlet district we could go to. Fortunately, it was about a 15-20min walk from where we were.

With map in hand, we started exploring the streets of Milan when we stumbled upon a market. Half of the market is selling dodgy things like underwear and porn (which Moishii was very keen on buying), but the other half was full of fresh fruit and vegetables that just make your mouth water looking at it!!!

Fresh seafood

Octopus

Fresh juicy fruit and vegetables

Shallots and peaches at the front

How gorgeous are those cherry tomatoes??

One of the shop owners even posed for me!

Moishii's purchase

Details.....

We eventually found ourselves in the shopping district. And before we even did any shopping, we stopped at a bar for some espressos first. No coffee, no shop. Once we got our caffiene fix, we started hitting the shops. I was surprised at how little I bought. Most of the things on offer just didn't appeal to me, and those that did appeal to me. Well, I could easily buy them back in Sydney at about the same price if not cheaper. After about the 10th shop, Moishii suddenly whipped around and started screaming at me for not buying anything. And that I needed to buy something to make HIM feel better. WTF? I don't see him buying anything!

We walked around in the scorching heat, ducking into most shops that had air conditioning. We even ducked into some dodgy store that sold porn because they had a MASSIVE airconditioning unit. I don't care that I was standing infront of a stand of R+ DVDs that had pretty animals on it, when its 40degrees blazing sun out there, I'll do anything for airconditioning. And it was probably about now that I noticed that I was getting stalked by a homeless guy. He's been following me around for the past couple of shops and he was starting to freak me out. I grabbed Moishii and we stepped on it and ducked into a shop to hide. We lost the guy, but a few shops later he found me again. We eventually shook him off which made shopping alot more relaxing for me. Probably why I ended up buying a few things. I didn't pick up much except a really nice frilled woollen scarf (why are they selling this in summer????), a nice leather handbag amongst other things. It wasn't as big of a shopping spree as I expected, but I think my CC was thanking me for that.

When it was lunch time, we ducked into a fastfood pizza joint where I grabbed a slice of pizza and salad whlist enjoying the aircon. I had barely finished eating when Moishii starts screaming that we need to keep moving. I was enjoying the aircon! *sigh* We decided to keep walking around and around and around and no one really bought anything anyway. Now we're standing in the middle of the street, with the sun blearing down on us and I'm about to pass out from a heatstroke. We found a semi shady area and sat down to study the map. We were looking for some sort of entertainment. ANY sort of entertainment. We decided that we should go watch a movie, but we couldn't find a cinema! We ended up asking a complete stranger who directed us back towards the Duomo.

5min metro ride away, we arrive at the Duomo and eventually located the cinema. Harry Potter was on, but since Moishii hadn't seen any of the movies, he didn't want to watch that. We were both going to watch Hostel 2, but we ended up freaking ourselves out considering the shithole we're currently staying in. So we settled for "Vacancy" instead. I warned Moishii that its all going to be in Italian when he insists that it'll be in English with Italian subtitles, or Italian with english subtitles. Lo and behold, it was all in Italian and no subtitles. Not that we really cared at this point considering we were SITTING in an airconditioned place!!! Seat + air con = GOOD!

I know Vacany was supposed to be a horror, but with the whole thing happening in Italian, there was a few times where we almost burst out laughing. And just at the movie started getting scary, the lights came on. Its intermission time. Like wtf?? The only good thing about the cinemas in Italy is that the toilet is INSIDE the cinema. So there is no hike across the building for a toilet break.

The movie wasn't too bad considering it was in Italian, but I definitely won't be buying the DVD. Once the movie ended, the lights came on and the SWAT team came swooping in to kick people out. So much for our plan to stay til the end of the credits. We're practically ejected onto the boiling hot streets when we decided to duck into the Myer-like department store for more shopping. Next thing you know, Moishii has thrown himself onto the underwear rack and started grabbinig random D&G and amarni undies. Whilst he was going nuts on the underwear, I was trying to devise a scheme to steal all the male underwear posters. God those Italian guys are hot!!

A hundred or so euros later, we walked out of the shop with nothing to do. We looked at the Milan guidebooks again and concluded that yes, they're crap, and we made the right decision not to buy it. We didn't want to go back to the stinking hot hotel since there were no restaurants around there. We ended up at Ciao again, which is basically Italian fastfood. By "Italian fast food" I mean a fresh salad and fruit bar, a pasta and risotto bar where dishes are made to order and a carvery with slow braised Italian dishes amongst other things. I ended up getting a massive bowl of salad and pasta with really really fresh crusty hot bread. God this fast food is better than the stuff you find at Leichhardt! I was originally hoping for some risotto, but again, we were too early and they weren't going to cook until 6. By the time we had picked our alternate dishes, it would've been 6pm. Just goes to show how impatient we are.

We decided to head back to the hotel, not before Moishii buys random sunglasses off a guy on the street only to find out that he was ripped off. We also stopped at the local supermarket and loaded up on drinks and alcohol. We also did a quick dry run and timed ourselves how long it'll take us to walk from the bus stop to our hotel for tomorrow. Next thing you know, we ended up sloshing around the hotel room, bumping into each other to try and pack our luggage with a glass of wine each. I decided to let Moishii pack whilst I had a shower, which to my surprise, WE HAD HOT WATER!!! I started screaming from the shower that there is hot water and Moishii thought I was kidding. I had to keep screaming we had hot water until he believed me. However, by the time he jumped into the shower, there was barely any hot water for him. I reckon the hotel has a hot water system that is smaller than my bladder. Either way, with a glass of wine in one hand, we managed to get most of our things packed. We even rigged up a security system incase there was a reenactment from "Vacancy".

The rest of the night was spent on my laptop where I tried to backup the 50 gigs of photos I've taken so far before we went to bed for the night. It was actually cool enough to sleep, but an hour after lights out, I found my head down the toilet sick as a dog. I think I know why that tomato I had for lunch tasted funny...this is not a good start to Mykonos.

Day 21 - The return to Milan

Its freezing. I'm pretty sure I had frostbite by the time I woke up. The good news was, my security system worked wonders again and we had survived our La Spezia holiday in one piece! We headed downstairs to "breakfast" where I had a big piece of crouton and packet jam. God I missed our 5 star hotels. We roamed outside to try and find some sandwiches/pastries we could buy to eat on the train. After walking around half of the town, we ended up back at yesterday's bar where we picked up 1 crossiant for Moishii, and 1/2 a piece of foccacia for me. And of course we had to have a coffee to kick start our day. We went back to our room for last minute packing before we checked out. Because the lift was so tiny, we actually had to leave separately as we couldn't possibly fit in together.

Then we had the nice long climb to the train station. It took us a good 5 minutes to get up the stairs as the plan was to lift the suitcases up about 10 steps. Stop. Go back and get our hand carry and bring it up the suitcase. Rinse and repeat until you got to the top of the stairs. By this time, I was huffing and puffing and sweating like I just did a marathon. At the top of the stairs was a cafe, and the people were just sitting there staring at us bent over and trying to breath. We dragged our stuff to the train station and went down in the first elevator to go underground, then we jumped into another elevator to go to the platform. Now, everytime we've used these elevator, I have been the operator. Don't forget, you must HOLD ONTO THE BUTTON THE ENTIRE TIME for it to move. However, at the last elevator, because of the way we got into the lift, I couldn't reach the buttons properly. So Moishii was in control of the elevator. So up we go. As the top of the lift reaches the platform, we could see our train on the platform since this is a glass elevator. SHIT! We're 20mins early but the train is already here! WE'RE GOING TO MISS THE TRAIN! The elevator comes to a stop and I push on the door to get out. Wait, the door isn't moving. I push harder. The door is locked! I drop everything and grab the handles with both hands and start tugging on it (*Flash back to the Santorini sunset moment......*) when someone walks past us. Out of nowhere, Moishii lunges over the suitcases and starts pounding on the door with his fists like a lunatic. He was about 2 seconds away from screaming his head off for help. This is when I turned around and decided to press the "up" button on more time. The lift moves up about 2 inches and suddenly the door opens when we toppled out. FFS! WHAT IS IT WITH US AND DOORS???????

We quickly drag everything with us and start racing down the platform to our carriage when we noticed that the doors are closed and everyone is crowded on the platform. The train wasn't due to leave for another 20mins! So much for our panic. So we're standing around our carriage and notice there is about 10 people crowded around the door. We decided to move to the other end of the carriage where there was no one waiting at all. So we're standing around a door and staring at this sign all written in Italian. The guy standing near us must've seen the drool coming out of our coma-like face and decided to tell us that the door is broken and won't be opening. God we must look intelligent. So we trundle back to the other door with the now growing group of people.

Finally the train doors open, and its worse than the Myer's Boxing day sale. Even the 70y.o. woman was about to pummel me in the face to get onto the train before me. Of course, I jump straigh into action and managed to elbow our way to the front of the queue. I jump onto the train and Moishii starts throwing the suitcases at me. We drag everything to our cabin, and thank goodness we're the first ones there. Since the train wasn't going to depart for awhile, we happily loaded all our stuff onto the overhead racks. Once we settled down, closed the doors and drew the curtains. We figured if people thought we were "doing things" in the cabin, they won't interrupt us or try to gas us. However, once the train started going through the tunnels which threw us into pitch darkness, meaning had to leave the curtains open.

After a few stops, people slowly started to trickle into our cabin. All was going well until this woman sat down next to me. for the next 2 hours, Moishii sat across from me, trying not to laugh. Not only was this woman as white as a ghost, she had these MASSIVE EYES. I called her Alien eyes. You know, those massive egg shapped eyes on the green alien? Except this Aliene was white. VERY WHITE. And she would sit there and read her book, and suddenly, her head will pop up. And she'll look. She'll slowly turn her head and look as if she was in a trance. Then go back to her book. Everytime she did this, Moishii practically peed himself trying not to laugh. It didn't help that I sat opposite him, with my eyes opened as wide as I can and doing those clown/ping pong ball imitation.


So here we all were, sitting in our very full cabin when this old guy walks in. He stares at his seat, this is being occupied by a woman dressed in a Highlighter fluroscent orange. Suddenly there was alot of commotion all happening in Italian when the old guy finds himself in the corridoor. From what we could understand, the Highlighter and stolen the guy's seat, and he's stuck in the corridoor whilst she gets the airconditioned cushy seat. And to add to the fun, some woman in the cabin next to ours started SCREAMING her head off. We were tempted to run next door to see if she was pulling her own teeth out. It went on for a good 10mins of her screaming randomly at someone.

As we get pull up to Milan, we spotted one of those massive thermometers stating that its currently 38degrees. FARK! This is going to get interesting. Next thing you know, half of the cabin jumps out of their seats to get ready to leave. Alien eyes next to me jumps up and tries to yank her HARD SHELL suitcase off from the overhead racks which was sitting directly above my head. My eyes practically popped out when I screamed at Moishii to help her before she crushed me to death! Out of harms way, we decided to sit back and wait for everyone to get off first. This was a smart move as it was another 10mins before we pulled up to the platform.

When we managed to get off the platform, we were hit by the heat. It was bad, but atleast we were undercover. We drag our suitcases around to try and find the information desk. The next 15mins involve us, with 4 bags, pushing our way through the crowds whilst going around in circles (OK, mainly me pushing through the crowds because Moishii was getting bowled over). We eventually did a smart thing and found a trolley. After another 10mins, we finally got directions to our hotel. By this time, we're sweating and tired. We race through the crowd and start unloading the trolley to drag all our bags down about 100 steps when we suddenly realise that there is an escalator! Thank god! We were seriously going to throw the bags down the stairs and just chase after them.

It took us about 15mins to get to the hotel when it should've been a 5min walk because we had to keep stopping and resting. By this time, the weather was stinking hot. Much much hotter than the 38 degrees when we got off the train. We finally spot our hotel and push our way through the doors and almost collapsing into the lobby. This is when we noticed half of the hotel has been ripped to shreds as a part of their renovation. Well I hope they're friggin putting in some elevators!! BECAUSE THERE ARE NO ELEVATORS!! And the guy behind the reception desk was practically laughing on the inside to watch us two morons drag our bags up the stairs to our room. He didn't even offer to help in ANY WAY WHATSOEVER!!! By the time we got into our room, I was drenched in sweat and my arms and legs were weak and wobbly. And the best bit? THERE IS NO AIR CONDITIONING!!!!!!

We throw the window open praying for some breeze when we're greeted by next door's laundry. We can't even move at this stage and just sit/lay where ever we landed. We decided to grab a quick shower each. The only problem was that there was no hot water. I guess thats not too bad when its 45 degrees!!! After our shower, we packed all our stuff and headed out to the Duomo. Our plan was to spend today sightseeing the Duomo and climbing to the top of the roof. Thats the ONLY sightseeing we want to do in Milan. And the rule for tomorrow is, no DSLR. We can bring our point and shoot if we want, but we really needed a break from the DSLR.

We catch the metro to the Duomo where we walk around in circles until we finally find the lift to the top. Once we're at the top, the view is breathtaking. There are no words to describe the intricacies on every inch of the roof.






As much as this place was gorgeous, it was 45 degree heat already. Standing on the roof of a WHITE MARBLE church that reflects the sun back on you, makes it almost 48 degrees. Teh 38 degree heat we felt when we got off the train would've been highly welcomed instead of this weather. At one stage, I had to sit down because I was getting such bad head spins. Is this called a heat stroke? Once I sat down, I couldn't get back up. Yet there were chicks in mini skirts and stilettos tromping aroung this place! Like wtf?

We called it quits when we realised we were going to pass out. I desperately needed a drink since I guzzled all my water climbing up to the roof. I spotted a Burger King and I immediately screamed that I am getting a drink. I'm pretty sure Burger King will have a big 1L icy cold coke waiting for me. I get in line, and before I can even order, Moishii screams that he's going to get food. Next thing you know, we had both ordered a meal deal and practically inhaled the whole thing down our throats. It was only then did we realised that we were famished! Not surprising considering we only had a crappy crossiant/crouton for breakfast and a small slice of pastry/bread each for lunch. This was possinly our best meal in Italy. Don't get me wrong. I loved the Italian food. But everytime it was meal time, it was either standing at a bar eating a sandwich because it was cheap and instant or sitting at a restaurant eating pizza which took them ages to make. This was cheap and instant, we got a seat AND it was HOT FOOD and GOD IT WAS GOOD! It was definitely better than sex!!!


After our meal, we walked around the local department store and being totally disgusted with the Milan guidebooks, we decided to head back to our hotel. I don't know why the hell we did that, considering we had NO AIR CONDITIONING, and the day certanly wasn't getting any cooler. We decided to stop by the local supermarket and stock up on water and supplies before heading back. As Moishii paid for the stuff, I started heading towards the door and stepped on this metal "speed bump" like thing on the floor. It goes "BAM!" and I basically got the dirties form the security guard who was just sitting 30cm away from it. 10secs later, Moishii stomps on the thing and it goes BAMMMMM!!!" again. This time, the security looked like he was going to shoot us if we didn't get out of there!!!

When we got back to the hotel, we told the guy at reception that we had no water. He just told us to run the water for awhile, and if there is no hot water, he'll look at it tomorrow. So we did exactly that. We turned the shower on and let it run for 2 mins, 5 mins, 15mins and there still wasnt any hot water! In the end, I just jumped in and rinsed off before jumping out. Even though it was 45 degrees outside, the water felt like -30!! So there was no lift, no air con, no hot water, and to make things worse, the TV had no remote. Not too much of an issue IF I COULD REACH the bloody controls. I finally give up and go to sleep. But it was so stinking hot, I ended up tossing and turning the entire night. I didn't even use a sheet because I was sweating in my PJs. I ended up sleeping less than 2 hours.....

Day 20 - Cinque Terre

It feels GREAT to sleep in! We didn't get up til about 8am which is a rare change for us. I'm surprised we actually woke up that early considering our room was FREEZING COLD and we should've been cryogenically frozen and not wake up until there was a power failure! When we had defrosted ourselves, we went down to the lobby and grabbed another time table for the trains to Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is fast becoming one of most popular tourist attractions in Italy. There are 5 coastal villages that make up Cinque Terre. Cinque being 5, and Terre being Village. And after hearing my workmates rave about it, it was a place we had to visit.

We walked towards the breakfast hall where a lady stops us and starts going on about something in Italian. Next thing you know, we're ushered into the breakfast room where they plonk 2 crossiants down on the table and screamed that they only had one chocolate crossiant left. Me not having a sweet tooth, didn't really care and took the plain one. And honestly, their breakfast wasn't the most appetising anyway. After staying at so many 4 and 5 star hotels, with a full buffet breakfast from bacon, eggs, sausages and various other deli meats and cheeses, to mountains of pastries and cakes as well as baskets filled with loaves of fresh bread, not to forget the cereal, fruit and mass amounts of freshly squeezed juice, their leftover crossiant just doesn't cut it.

After breakfast, we quickly headed upstairs and grabbed our gear before heading back to the train station. We purchase our tickets and quickly did a scan of the timetable to see when our train will be coming. This is when we noticed that there won't be a train for atleast 1.5hrs. Apparently from 9am to 10:30am, there are no trains to Cinque Terre. And you know what the best thing is? The timetable we got yesterday from reception and the one we got today from reception AND the one hanging in the foyer of the reception ALL SAY THAT. Yet neither of us bothered reading the timetable properly! This meant we had 1.5hrs with nothing to do! God I could've slept in some more! *Sigh*

With that in mind, we immediately went to the nearest bar for some coffee. This is the first bar we've been to that has bar stools. We weren't sure if sitting on the bar stools AT THE BAR counts as sitting down for coffee, so we did this half ass on half ass off the stool type thing. So we're KIND OF SITTING, but we're not. Anyway, half way through the coffee, this little asian girl comes out and sits at the bar with us. She would've been the age of 6? 7? This almost caused Moishii to have a laughing fit, because he reckons that was the young me. Whatever.

After the coffee, we still had a good hour left, so we went back to the hotel where we fell back into bed. God it was harder getting up the second time than it was the first time. After an hour, we headed back to the train station to wait for our train. Whilst we were there, we thought we'd pop into the ticketing office to try and upgrade our train ticket to Milan from second class to first class, simply because we thought we would get more luggage space. After lining up for 15mins behind a bunch of tools going off at the workers, they gave us a basic "NO!" and to do it on the internet. What a nice way to waste our time.

The train pulls up and we immediately jump on. First stop was Riomaggiore. We get oiff and wonder around aimlessly lost for a few minutes before we located the sign to the "lover's walk". This is an easy paved walk from Riomaggiore to Manarola, the second village from La Spezia. They call it the Lover's Walk as the lover's can stroll along the coast without breaking into a sweat! Plus the view is gorgeous! Probably why there are so many proposals that happen at Cinque Terre.




The walk was a pleasant stroll allowing us to admire the coastal view. Along the way, they had a cafe that allows you to sit back and relax. We also reached a tunnel where the walls are "decorated" with various love declarations.



We also managed to find the $40 woman's sister!!


We finally reached Manarola, we had to decend this friggin steep steep set of stairs to get down to the town.


And this is where we had to climb this FRIGGIN steep hill just for the fun of it.


The only consolation was that we managed to pick up a whole heap of really nice postcards. We strolled around the town a bit and managed to take some gorgeous photos of the town:





And suddenly, for some STUPID reason, we decided to walk from Manarola to Corniglia, the 3rd Village. Now don't get me wrong, I don't mind the walk too much. But it was around 35degrees and this was an unpaved road and we didn't have hiking shoes! I was wearing my 4 year old tacky running shoes, which I had planned to throw in the bin if I ran outta room in my luggage! There were a few times where we thought we were going to slip to our deaths.

And this is the "nice" part of the road

The bad thing was, all the people from behind kept overtaking us! And along the whole way, they have these signs telling you how long it should take you to walk to the next sign. And what should've taken 15mins, would take up 25mins! My only excuse was that we had to keep stopping for photos, and the photos were gorgeous!

Does that look like a pair of boobs and feet to you?

We had to run over that!

When we got to Corniglia, we were about to pass out from heat exhaustion. Why didn't we just take the easy way and catch the damn train?? *Sigh* Atleast we did the smart thing and waited the 20mins for a local bus to drive us to the town centre rather than hiking up the mountain. We followed the narrow pathways through the town in a desperate search for food. We were SO OVER sandwiches that we were craving for a nice BIG BOWL of pasta. And we spotted a few tables of people chowing down on the best pasta I've ever seen, so we decided to sit down.....in the cafe next door. Yes I know. We didn't sit down at the restaurant we were salivating over, but the one next door. Like WTF? Don't ask me why. I don't know why either. We ended up ordering a tortelini each, as well as a caprese salad. However, what we got was this:

Caprese salad

Tortellini

Look VERY carefully, there is still plastic wrap on the edge of the bowl. That's right. That's a FROZEN MICROWAVE PASTA MEAL!!! Its practically lean cuisine!! But you know what? That lean cuisine wannabe, tasted better than some of the pasta you get around Sydney. How sad is that?


After indulging in some ice cold coke and coffee, we set off to explore the town a bit more. Except we were thinking this place is the crummiest village we've been to, until we saw this:

Of course, someone ALWAYS has to ruin it

OK, this village ain't that crummy afterall!! By this stage, it was about 1pm and it was STINKING HOT. I was about to pass out! We decided to catch the local bus back to the train station and catch the train to Vernazza. We walked back to the town square and saw the whole village waiting for the bus. Bloody hell, this is going to be a tight squeeze. We waited for a bus when suddenly a woman charges past us with a massive vacum cleaner. Like wtf? Who runs around with a vacum cleaner? Our theory is that she's going to hike from Corniglia to Manarola with that vacum cleaner. We barely got our laughing fit under control when the bus came. Within seconds, there was a stampede. Luckily I managed to grab hold of Moishii and dragged him onto the bus before we got stomped to death. Meanwhile, there were these 3 Japanese guys that have been following us from Manarola to all around Corniglia. And when we jumped onto the train to Vernazza, they were right behind us as well. It was as if they didn't know what to do, and seeing that I was the only asian, decided to do whatever I was going to do. We had to lose these stalkers.

However, we completely forgot about them the minute we got to Vernazza. It was a small quaint little village with the cobblestoned walkways. There were people lounging about enjoying their gelato whilst soaking up the sun. As we kept walking, we eventually came upon their little piece of heaven:







We ended up just sitting by the pier watching the people for a good half hour. And we were probably watching this couple play frisbee more than anything. Whenever the guy does a bad throw to the girlfriend, who misses the catch. She would HURL the frisbee back at him, aiming for a spot near a boat. It seemed that she was hoping he'll lunge for the frisbee and smack himself into the boat. '


We eventually got up and hit the bar for some alcohol. Its been a long day and we need alcohol alright?? After that, we hopped back onto the train to the last village, Monterosso. This is probably the most touristy village of them all. The beaches are lined with beach chairs and umbrellas. It looked more like a resort than a village to me!

Leaving Vernazza for Monterosso

That looks sooooooo wrong doesn't it?? Hehe

By this time, we were completely exhausted. The sun was blazing hot and if I was a piece of steak, I was beyond well done. We strolled through the seats until we found a nice quiet shady area outside a church to rest. This is when Moishii spotted the church security guard sleeping on the job:

Church Security

Random woman watching security slack off

We had finally had enough of the whole sight seeing thing and decided to head on home. Instad of catching the train back to La Spezia, we hopped onto a ferry that would take us from Monterosso to Manarola. The views was worth every cent we paid:

The Ferry

When we got back to Manarola, it was a hike all the way back to the train station to get to La Spezia. By this time, I was ready to drop dead. However, if we went back to the hotel to rest, we would not leave again to go have dinner. So we decided to have an early dinner and then go back to rest. However, I think it was TOO early for the Italians. We went back to the same pizza restaurant and sat there, and sat there and sat there. No one came out to serve us after 15mins so I stormed in to see all of them sitting down to dinner. They were completely disgusted that we wanted to eat dinner there. And they kept telling us all they're willing to serve us is pizza (hoping we'll leave), but we only wanted to pizza. So they were screwed either way. We also ordered another bottle of wine to help with the packing of our luggage tonight.

I needed that drink BADLY

Ham, mushroom and olive pizza

Porcini mushroom pizza

Suddenly, out of no where, the most gorgeous dog appears! And I said outloud to Moishii "OMG! Thats soooooo cute!". So the owner stops, and steers the dog towards me, and instructs the dog to jump all over me! However, the dog was so cute I didn't mind!


After we finished our meal, we stumbled back to the hotel in a drunken stupor to pack our belongings and crashed into bed for the night.

By the way, this photo seems to capture the essence of Cinque Terre for me. I didn't even remember taking this until I was browsing through my photos the other day. It totally took my breath away and brought me back to Italy. I must admit, I couldn't help but smile when I realised I took this photo! It was something I would've paid for if it was a postcard! hehe