If you think sitting on top of the world is great, try going around it!
Hey guys sorry about being lame and writing like once a month… I never was good at keeping a diary! Like is crazy busy and work hours (10AM- 6 or 8PM) don’t leave me with as much time as I had expected…
The next morning Peter and I take our time waking up… There’s no sense in moving towns today… We’ll rent kayaks and go swimming… At 9:30 I wander down to our realtor’s office to ask for one more night in our little apartment that we were supposed to be checking out of at 10. My wish is granted and I head back to bed.
Around 11 Peter and I finally make the move for the door.
We eat breakfast at Bar Centrale. It’s surprisingly tasty as well (though my yogurt serving was so small that I had to get an orange at the grocery to fill me up).
After breakfast we wander down to the waterside. Once again, the water is too dangerous to even lay out near. Tourists are everywhere. You can’t walk up the stairs without getting stuck behind slow walkers with no way to get around them.
 Mood swing.
I. hate. tourists.
Seeing my growing discomfort with the should-to-shoulder foot traffic, Peter suggests we get out of this town. We shuffle over to the train station to book tickets to Lugano (a town in Switzerland that’s about half way to Zurich). The man tells us it’s going to be $150 a piece. It has to be in cash. We decline.
Peter says we can still figure out a way to get somewhere else. We head to our apartment, pack our bags and go to the office to check out. The man is a little dismayed since we were not 2 hours past the check out time but he doesn’t put up too much of a fight.
Heading back to the train station I insist on stopping into the train station cafe once more for a treat I’d been eying since our arrival:
We jump on a train to La Spezia (just down the road) and figure we’ll book tickets from there. Peter stands in the line to the counter while I try my hand at one of the ticket machines. After waiting in the long and ever growing line for 20 minutes suddenly the curtain is pulled down. A lady steps out of the desk and tells us to come back in 20 minutes.
Really?
We figure out the ticket machine and book tickets for a train to Milan that leaves in an hour, just figuring we could find tickets to Lugano from there. From this we take a short walk down to the city to find alcohol for our long day and find the entire city closed for the afternoon. 3 Euro beers from the eatery at the train station are our only option which we decide is a little out of our price range. We settle on McDonald’s for lunch… tasty…
On the train we are seated across from a young attractive presumably Italian couple.. Though neither of us can confirm that because they didn’t speak enough for us to decipher their language. The girl was tall and tiny- like she might break if she sneezed. After we got off the train Peter asked if she might be a model. I think it was plausible.
I fell asleep quickly and awoke an hour in to find Peter looking miserable.
“It’s so hot.”
“It is?”
That’s when I realized the air conditioning was broken. The rest of the train looked equally as miserable.
I could have killed Peter for pointing the fact out to me. Suddenly it was hot. Too hot.
To pass the time Peter and I played games on my iPod. Time crept by slowly. Slowly. The scenery was blah. The heat was blah. The look on every passengers face was blah. The model-esque girl sitting across from us even looked blah.
We almost applauded arriving at the Milan train station. Getting off we headed for another ticket machine and found we had an hour and a half until the next train to Lugano.Â
This is how we passed our time:
We thought this would be a fruity drink but instead it was Monte Negro… We both drank it anyway.
Â
(There should be two more beers in this picture but Peter had already taken his his and headed back to the beer stand)
After 4 rounds in Milan we head off for our hour long train ride- prepared:
Thankfully just as dark set in we arrived in Lugano.Â
Tired from the trip we entered the first hotel we saw (less than 20 yards from the train station) and Peter bartered for a room. An actual hotel room. Just what we needed.
For those of you living under a rock, Rick Steves is travel writer whose books are among the most popular travel Bibles in the United States. You see American tourists wandering around cities all over the world with his book in hand. Usually, they are are the hunt for some hidden gem his written about and when they arrive find it’s filled with other Americans also carrying his guide.
It’s safe to say Rick Steves has ruined many a ‘hidden gem’. He has turned these gems into tourist traps. That’s one of the pangs of being a travel writer, your job is to find the hidden gems and write about them, which, in turn, distructs their appeal because they will now be swarmed with tourists.
Back to the story.
So later that night Peter and I opt we should have a low-key night and find a place to eat within Riomaggiore.
On the main road through town we’d seen a patio that tended to have people seated at all times of the day… At first we thought that meant the food must be good, then we realized it meant there are only 5 restaurants in town.
Walking onto the patio there is something distinctly different about this place than anywhere we have been so far.
“Do you feel like we’re walking in to Mellow Mushroom?” Peter asks.
Then it hits me. Something is different. Every single person on the patio is speaking English. American English.
Dang it.
Reading the menu, we realize that while this place always has a crowd it must not be because of the food selection. There is an asterick by each menu item.
*This item has been frozen. *This item is not made on the premises.
Something around those lines. Every item. Well okay then.Â
I should mention that there is a cool breeze and I am cold (as usual) but am too tired to hike all the way back up the stairs to our apartment so Peter runs all the way back to get a long sleeved shirt for me. Guess he’s made up for the day of the train ride. Was that just yesterday?
While waiting for him to get back two girls at a table next to me strike up a conversation. They are actually from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, which is home to one of the largest IronMan competitions in the Unite States. The girls were spending a month traveling after both were laid off which I think is an awesome thing to do.
So Peter gets back and it’s time to order. A salad to start, lasagna for Peter (so hard headed) and a pasta dish whose description mentions mushrooms for me. I can’t resist mushrooms. They are my favorite food in the world and should be added to everything! Peter orders a bottle of white wine.
Surprisingly, all of this microwaved food is delicious! I think we even ate all the olives in the salad though neither of us are huge olive fans.Â
Eating our dinner, the patio continues to get more and more crowded. Tables are being pulled together for drinking games. People are actually standing around tables bumping into seated diners.Â
Ew. American college students.
I’ve done study abroad. I can say it. American college students are by far the most annoying tourists in the world. It’s awesome if you’re one of them, it’s irritating when you’re subjected to them.
And Peter has ordered an entire bottle of wine. We’re trapped.Â
I’m really not in a drinking mood. We had two beers during the last story, and while getting ready for dinner we had a few glasses of wine.
It’s up to Peter to drink this bottle.Â
Feeling claustrophobic and not having seen our waiter in 20 minutes I head inside the bar to find the cash register. I turn the corner into the restaurant and WOW. It’s packed (we couldn’t see inside from our table). A line literally to the door of thirsty Americans.
I cut it.
The bartender sees I’m not one of them. I yell over the noise I want to pay for dinner. He asks what we had. I tell him. I pay. The honor code way. I like that.
When I get back to the table Peter is talking to two new people and the Idaho girls have left. Georgia Tech students who are studying abroad in France. They saw his Sweet Water Brewery shirt. It’s easy to pinpoint Atlanta residents.
By this time we are having to protect our chairs. You stand up for three seconds and someone will try to grab it.
Ew. Why?
The Tech students enlighten us.
Rick Steves named this restaurant the best place to party in Riomaggiore (as if there is any other place). Bar Centrale. No wonder they were serving microwaved food. D’oh!
A girl I met the following day told me she’s talked to the owner and asked him how he liked Riomaggiore. His reply, “Riomaggiore before Rick Steves or after? Because it’s very different now.”
Our first full day in Riomaggiore Peter and I had planned on renting kayaks and going exploring but sadly the waters were too rough for people to even lay out near the water. The effect of rough water in Cinque Terre is similar to the effect of rainy days in a city… In a city when in rains tourists crowd into museums. In Cinque Terre when the water is rough, the tourists head for the hiking trails.
Peter came to Cinque Terre 2 years ago with his entire family. When we decided to return here there was one thing Peter insisted we must do… We must hike to all the villages.
Now I love doing the “must-do”s- I made a point of doing a few of ‘Frommer’s Favorites’ for every city I visited on my RTW trip. This was no different- Alright, let’s do it.
7.5 miles of trails with total 3,250 feet of total elevation gain and loss. Woohoo!
We wake up mid morning, put on our sneakers, pack the day-pack with water bottles and a camera, and head for the trail. We stop at the train station deli for breakfast though Peter thought we could hike to the first village for that– no, no, I don’t hike without food.
11AM we buy our trail pass and are on our way. We’ll take the blue trail on the map below.
The first hike is easy-peesy. It’s got a sidewalk for goodness sake. At one point we walk through a tunnel where a guy is playing the accordion for change. I could do this all day.
It takes us about 20 minutes to get from Riomaggiore to Manarola.
Manarola is similar to Riomaggiore except a little bit bigger and maybe not as steep.
We wander through the city for a bit and Peter lets me stop in some stores in search of mementos. Peter probably saved me some cash on this trip since though he was sweet and let me go in wherever I wanted, he never looked super excited about it so I usually hurried out empty handed.
Peter and I are fast walkers, I mean we were passing people left and right (in as polite a fashion as we could manage, though some people (like those taking up the entire trail while talking on their cell phones (at least they weren’t speaking English!)Â made it quite difficult).
The hike from Manarola to Corniglia was another easy one… Only the closer we got the further up I noticed the city was… How are we going to get up there?! Oh…  The stairs.
Peter, of course, decides he is going to run up the stairs, an activity he and his siblings did when they did the hike previously. He asks if I would like to join him. (This is the Friday after the Sunday of his IronMan.)
BAHAHA.
I walk up taking my time. When I arrive at the top Peter is still catching his breath.
This city seems bigger than the other cities and we wander through the maze of hallways between buildings.
Hiking away Peter tells me that this is where all the fun begins… Or maybe he didn’t say it just like that but hiking up the first of many carved in stairs I know that’s what I was thinking.
The trail from Corniglia to Vernazza is the longest of what we’ve hiked so far and though there are timing estimates on how long it should take you to get from one city to the next Peter and I are blowing these out of the water. For the most part I lead the way, but merely because if Peter were to go first he might leave me behind in the dust. It’s pretty hot outside and luckily we have two water bottles that Peter has refilled out of the water fountains in each city.
Despite the increasing difficulty of the hike we are still in good spirits (I should say “I am” because it would take more than a couple of hills to deter Peter’s mood) when we make it to Vernazza in about an hour.
We take 5 for a gelato break. When I ask Peter if he would like his own cup he promptly says ‘yes’ followed by a hesitant ”I mean if you really want to we can share” in courtesy of my post prior to leaving for Europe I assume. But, you know, we earned it, so we each get our own.
I had Nutella and Stracciatella (kind of like chocolate chip ice cream) and Peter had Fior de Latte (Flower of Milk) and Lampone (Raspberry). Â (Does this make you question his manhood?)
We stop for a minute to watch the huge waves break over the cement breakers where all the tourists are trying to lay out then decide we best be moving on.  This next hike is the hardest of them all.
It starts off going straight up hill and my attitude changes from happy-go-lucky hiker to are-we-there-yet hiker. Up a hill, around a corner, Oh Look More Make Shift Stairs, up the stairs, turn the corner, Oh Look More Make Shift Stairs. As much as I try to cover my growing unhappiness with the uphill hike it’s all but obvious in my silence that I am wondering “Which turn will be the last?”…
To make matters worse my ears are popping, an issue I’ve had during physical activity (I hate that phrase) since my sophomore year in high school. My iPod is the only reason I can run because it somewhat blocks it out. (I will be deaf by the time I’m 30.)
So I’m climbing these hills and have to keep stopping to turn my head over to pop my ears. Plus when this is going on my nose runs (I have no idea how this these things are associated but they are- small nasal passages?) so I’m sniffling, hiking, ear popping. It’s terribly frustrating and I’m sure annoying for those around me (which makes it even more frustrating for me even if they don’t say it bothers them because I know it has to!).
My brother Jimmy is the only other person I know who has this problem… If you happen to have a remedy please email me!
At some points we can see Monterossa in the distance. It looks very small. I tend to think of this as a bad sign.
Along the way we pass small homes built into the sides of the mountains. How did they decide to move there? How do they get supplies? Why would you want to live there? Do they have electricity? Water? I bet it’s hard for their kids to play sports outside. (That last thought was Peter’s, could you tell?)
Hike hike hike. Up stairs, down stairs, pass people, get passed (only twice- but by the same 2 guys). Finally we see we’re closing in on Monterossa… It’s just down the hill… Just down past the vineyards…
I AM SO GLAD WE STARTED IN RIOMAGGIORE.
Down the stairs. Down down down. 25 minutes of going down stairs. Awkwardly spaced stairs.
Somehow my pictures from this part of the trip went missing or maybe I forgot to take them because I was merrily running down the stairs. It’s almost over! It’s almost over!
The “2 hour” hike took us about an hour or something around those lines.
First, we must get in the water. We drop our stuff on the shoulder-to-shoulder crowded beach and make a run for the water. The waves are massive! Staying in until the heat from the hike left out bodies we head back to the beach, find a family of 4 has taken up all the space surrounding our pile of stuff, grab our bag and pick a nice place on the cement walkway to let the sun dry us off (of course we didn’t pack towels).
Once dry enough, we need to have a beer… And it would probably be a good idea to get something to eat as well.
We walk around town looking for a place to eat. The biggest problem with these towns is that they are so small that nothing is not touristy. We walk to the end of the line (literally the end of the town) looking for somewhere we find acceptable, find nothing that actually qualifies and give up settling on the closest pizza place in our immediate sight.
Our mid afternoon meal was huge and we downed the entire basket.
You know you’re in a tourist place when the menu comes in 7 languages:
After eating, we walk around the city, Peter points out to me where he and his family stayed, I check the small grocery store to see if A) they sell frozen pizza (They do) and B) What style it is (Napoleon), we run out of places to wander and debate finding a happy hour in Monterrosso. Alas, we decide we should jump on the train back to Riomaggiore because it’s better to be tired near your bed than several cities over.
Back in Riomaggiore, we stop at the train station deli for another couple of beers for the walk home (you can walk along the ridge line from the train station into the city).
We drink our beer and find a seat up on a rock to watch the waves for awhile. It’s been a tiring day but all in all I’m glad Peter made me do it.
After a few glasses of wine… and a few beers at the train station… We head off for La Spezia, about an 8 minute train ride from Riomaggiore. Walking through the streets we settle on spot for dinner- it has a nice outdoor seating area (on a walking street) and almost every table is full with large servings in front of everyone. Yes, yes, this will do.
Of course I had to take a photo of the bread! (Notes for the bakery back home!) Little rolls in plain, sesame and poppy… We went through 2 baskets!
For an appetizer we choose the “Fantasy Mix”- salmon in a puff pastry, carrots wrapped in salmon, a scallop, sardines, and a local fish called Baccala (dried salted cod)
My dinner- more sardines (for which La Spezia is famous), Octopus, Baccala (dried salted cod) and shrimp
Peter really wanted lasagna while in Italy so he orders the “Green Lasagna”… His dinner’s only resemblance to lasagna is the noodles… To us this was more of a Fettucine.
As if one meal wouldn’t be large enough, Peter also ordered a side of potatoes.
Can’t have dinner in Europe without wine! The waiter chose a white wine for us actually from Cinque Terre which was delicious!
The whole dinner was fabulous, though I couldn’t handle all the sardines! (Peter couldn’t even finish them for me!). After dinner, we wandered through the crowded streets but decided we would need to take the 11:15 train home instead of holding out for the 12:50AM train…
Though this blog may indicate that Peter and I are party animals by the amount of wine we’ve been drinking on this trip, I think you should know we were asleep every night before 1AM… Peter and I both know sleep takes priority!
Sorry guys as it turns out I’m kind of a promise break these days and I haven’t sat down to write out everything yet!
Current every day schedule: Wake up, eat breakfast, run whatever distance my training schedule tells me, go to work, work, lunch, work, work, do some manual baking labor, home by 7, eat dinner, drive to Peter’s, fall asleep watching t.v., drive home from Peter’s, sleep…
In short I’m super lame without much of an excuse. Â I’m working on it! (And Jocelyn is working on her post– she has some pictures and things– this thing is tricky!)
We wanted to go on a big vacation before we sold our souls to the corporate world for good. We love the outdoors, adventurous activities, new places- I mean, we met in Australia and rivaled each other in number of times bungying at AJ Hackett’s in Cairns…so yes, Costa Rica here we come.
http://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs198.snc1/6696_924468141323_5202510_52883975_7317962_n.jpg
May through November is the “green season”- basically it supposedly rains all the time and is the low season for tourists= cheaper prices. Plane tickets were reasonable (250-350 from Orlando and DC, respectively), hostels are numerous, and the amount of natural beauty there makes me salivate. Alas, the Ticos (native Costa Ricans) always say ‘pura vida’ which is to the effect of ‘no worries’ in australia or ‘no problem mon’ in 
jamaica.
Initially- storms in Washington DC delay my flight, it becomes apparent that I will barely if at all make my connecting flight in Atl to meet Parker and fly to San Jose. His aunt, works for Delta, ends up scooping me from my gate and driving (she’s a pretty…enthusiastic driver,meaning signs aren’t necessarily meant for her to follow) across the tarmac to our flight. Very happy to finally be with the boy on our way to Costaa!
San Jose= gross. Go there for the airport and get out, immediately. It’s like a dirty, crusty…bad area of NY+worst of Phila+ hookers and old American men looking to get laid (this was common throughout Costa..gross also).Our Itinierary came to be, after many changes, this:
-6/9: Arrival to San Jose > car rental > Drive to Arenal (3.5 hours) > Hotel Sierra Arenal bc Backpackers was full, $45 very nice place AMAZING VIEW of Vulcan Arenal> Baldi Hot Springs ($26 ea. entrance)> Restaurant Fernando does the street from our hotel…delicious
-6/10: Arenal national Park for hike up the volcano..amazing a must do($10ish to park)> Waterfall La Fortuna($7 ez. entrance)> Lava House dinner (eh, I’d skip it)purchase CACIQU guaro, 30% alcohol, not good($no amt. worth it)> Arenal Backpacker’s Resort ($28). boozing and hanging with new friends…
-6/11: 7:20am pickup for canyoning with Desafio extreme adventure company (highly recommended, like $80ish ea)> drive to Jaco 5 hours, come upon crappy weather> Jaco is used, many hookers, dirty beach but beautiful sunset> incredible sushi, Tsunami> boozed slept in very small smaaall room
-6/12: {1 year anniversary <3} Rainy in Jaco> delicious breakfast at cafe> drive to Maneul Anotnio to surprise hotel for anniv. (1.5ish hour drive)> drive in to sunlight to La Mariposa {http://www.lamariposa.com/} this place is stuuupid beautiful> afternoon at hotel> to manuel antonio beach to surf ($20/hour per board)> dinner at El Avion <3
-6/13: Breakfast at La Mariposa and morning of enjoying insane hotel> new place to stay is Villas Nicolas ($75) worth it, amazing> hiking in Manuel Antonio ($6.00 ea entrance), swimming> dinner @ agua azul, amazing> drinks/search at El Avion
-6/14 Breakfast at El Gran Escape, BANANA PANCAKES+ fruit plate= heaven> trinket shopping on Manuel Antonio Strip> surfing ($10 or 1100 colones/day per board)> drive to Dominical (1 hour)> pick a hostel Cabinas Arena y Sol ($30ish..reaaaalll rough place, NOT nice, like from a crack-movie, but a place to sleep and chill :)> watch sunset on beach>take it iiinnnnn> evening in Dominical, food-casados (tortilla flats, yum), meeting locals, boozing, meeting Jeff’s friends….
-6/15 Wake, pack, to beach> surf ALL day amazing, lunch at…..> leave at 3:30pm to drive to San Jose (4 hours) through mountains highly recommended, GORGEOUS views of sunset and clouds in mountains..unreal> Hotel la Cuesta, like a pensione, in San Jose ($28) really I doubt there’s a nice place to stay in San Jose..its pretty dirty, hard to get around…thanks GPS!!!
Ok so once i figure out/Kate tells me how to get pictures up here i will elaborate and make this cooler. I plan for a ‘all things CR’ page…but with a cooler and more creative name and maybe with some input of this companion I went to Costa Rica with. let’s just say our travel journal has more pink writing than blue. but that was probably becuase I didn’t drive. Once, but still.
After eating the sandwich the remaining 3 hours of our train trip to Riomaggiore was relatively uneventful. We just watched as time ticked by… Hour after hour… Wondering when we would arrive…
Finally around 5:30 we made it! Getting off the train, we follow the hostel’s instructions: take a right off the train and walk through the tunnel. Check.
Walk up the hill.
Now that sounds vague but if you’ve been to Riomaggiore you know, The Hill is the main street of town. You don’t have an option. Up The Hill you go.
I should have packed lighter.
We hike up the hill, find our hostel’s home base, and wait for the owner Patricia to come back from wherever she had gone (her neighbors didn’t know). Wait wait wait. I need to pee so I’ll admit I’m in a bit of a huff after I’m sent me to the public toilet and it’s a squatter. I left those behind in China. No thank you. I’ll hold it.
Grumble grumble.
Finally Patricia shows up and says she can show us to our room. We follow.
Photo of short hallway missing.
Well, the reviews I read on Hostel World weren’t lying… Patricia’s Rooms are either hit or miss. Our view is of a neighbor’s kitchen. Our shower is a square tub (not much bigger than what the picture shows) and a hose you have to hold up, no curtain.Â
But a room is a room and we are happy to have landed after our long journey. We drop our bags, hike around town to get our barings and stretch our legs, but some postcards and are tipped off by the postcard lady that it’s White Night in La Spezia… Suddenly we have plans for the night…
Peter’s alarm went off bright and early the next day (around 8AM) and I hopped out of bed ready to go purchase our train tickets I had pre-selected on the Swiss train website the day before (if only I’d had a printer so I could pre-purchase them).Â
Peter was not so rip-roarin to go. He volunteered me to go by myself.
Seriously?!
Up to the train station I go.
Look at this line.
I stood in this line while Peter slept.
Finally making it to the front and telling the ticket-man the path I would like to take he tells me it’s not possible since the trains are sold out. He redirects me- we’ll head to Ventimiglia on the Italian border and catch a train from here to Riomaggiore- there will be lots of options so we can just buy our next ticket there. The tickets to Ventimiglia are 12 Euro.
The next train to Ventimiglia is at 10:05 so I hurry home to get Peter out of bed and packed. It’s time to move!
Arriving back in the hotel room Peter is still fast asleep. GET UP.
We head out, pick up a chocolate-filled croissant, a cinnamon-roll-esque pastry and a Coke for Peter who looks as if his head might be ringing.
The train is PACKED. With our big bags we can’t find a place to sit so we opt for the stairs for the 2 hour ride. Peter is looking rough.
“Do you want your breakfast?”
“Not yet.”
I eat my croissant. He drinks his Coke.
45 minutes later I’m still hungry.
“Want your breakfast?”
“Not yet.”
“Can I have a bite?”
“Sure.” (Okay so maybe I didn’t ask… who really remembers little details like that?)
You know how cinnamon rolls work- the best part is in the very center and the edges are pretty much just decoration. So being hungry and knowing we’ll be in Ventimiglia soon I eat the crust of Peter’s cinnamon roll. He takes the center. Which, remember, the only part that counts anyway. So I didn’t eat Peter’s breakfast…
We get to Ventimigilia and Peter waits in a line while I try out the ticket machine. The tickets are only 14 Euros a piece for the 6 hour train ride. Peter steps out of line because I’ve gotten the tickets. The cost makes us nervous. Back to the end of the line. Ticket-man tells us these are the correct tickets and our train is in an hour.
Peter doesn’t look well but I don’t want to waste an hour in a train station. We know we’re near the water so we decide we’ll walk to the beach, go to the ATM, pick up breakfast and make it back to the train.
Turns out that plan was not perfect. We walk 12 minutes to the beach through a busy market street, sit on the beach for 20 minutes (it looked as though it might rain), walked back towards the train station looking for an ATM but all of them had huge lines. Finally found an ATM with only 2 people in line. We still have time! Only the dude in front of us must have been on drugs (or just in the same hungover mental state as Peter). He couldn’t figure out the ATM machine. And he wasn’t moving. We wait. Wait. Wait.
Finally he finishes. I swoop in, press English, chose my Euro amount and grab my cash. Record time at an ATM.
Getting cash we run in to the train’s sandwich shop. Peter tries to buy a sandwich and is redirected to another counter to pay first, here he waits in line behind a woman debating which gum to buy. No time for this! We run to the train.
It’s now 11:30AM and Peter has had a can of Coke and the center of a cinnamon roll. Mr. IronMan has had 150 calories at 11:30AM. He burned that much walking to the beach.
You should know that Peter never complains. Doesn’t really speak up about his discomforts. Simply put he’s not a whiney kid. But anyone could realize he has to be hungry by this point.
After getting on the train, I make friends with the Irish guys sitting across from us and 2 hours into the ride ask them if they have any food we can buy off them. They kindly give us some snack crackers. I discretely give mine to Peter.Â
He’s still hungry. (Not that he says any thing.)
I ask for more. They oblige. I give mine to Peter.
He’s still hungry. (Again, no words, just an “I could eat” or something around those lines.)
Not complaining, but obviously hungry.
We keep looking for vending machines as we pass through train stations. Nothing.
Plus we don’t know how long the train will be at a stop and we don’t want to risk getting left behind.
Finally I see a vending machine as we are stopped.
After a few minutes of debating if we were going to be staying at this stop for awhile I conclude that the guy smoking a cigarette outside who is riding in the same car as us is a good indication that it’s safe.
I run off the train, coins in hand. I scan the choices. TUC Crackers?! Bueno Bar?! Tuna Sandwich?!
I don’t have much time to think but I realize as tasty as a Bueno Bar may be it probably wouldn’t satisfy Peter’s hunger. I only have 2 Euros so my choices are limited.Â
Sandwich time.
There are lots of options.
I pick what looks like a ham and cheese sandwich (figured it would be the safest choice). I punch the bottons. G-13.
Wrong numbers. No looking back
I run back on the train and hand Peter his meal.
No complaints.
Hey guys, sorry it’s taken so long for me to post… It’s just… I got back and you know… Life started happening… And I know that’s a terrible excuse…
Tomorrow night I promise I will sit down and write the rest of Kate and Peter Go To Europe.
PROMISE.
Unless I am bamboozled into going to another Tori Amos concert.
More to come on that.
So don’t miss out.
Log on to WorldWideKate.com in 48 hours.