Wow!

To be honest, the road to Cinque Terre was long and sweaty, although I took a little detour to Pisa and Lucca.

As usual, I couldn't sleep at the hostel last night. They have a bar nearby, no wonder they have steet party till 4am. Fortunately, I had nothing to do in Rome yesterday so I went to bed at around 9am. Woke up at 6am, so looking forward to escape from this hostel, I went to the train station knowing that I have to wait 2 hours--believe me, it's much better than staying in the bed at that hostel.

Anyways, went to Pissa and Lucca afterwards. It's the most seamless time connecting trains today since the schedule of the trains to Pissa and Lucca were perfectly matched.

I have been saying a lot of bad things about Italians, but I started to admire them now: despite the fact that they always smoke around me, jumping in the line, throwing rocks to my windows--they are truely helpful, warm, inviting, and fun. Today when I was in the three-hour train from Rome to Pisa, I talked to three different Italian families. They're just like one big family! Although I don't quite get what they say in Italian, there was a guy translated for me... all without me asking! And you know my luggages are huge and heavy, and these guys helped me to rearranged the cramped luggage rack and helped me to push the luggage up (and pull it down too when I left the train). They're truely awesome people. And you know what, whenever I'm lost, I always get a lot of help from the Italian strangers--even though they don't quite understand English, and I have no clue about Italian either--but somehow we communicated and I got the right directions. Isn't this awesome? Sadly, when in I asked directions to some English-speaking family today, you know what they answered? "I don't know, go ask yourself..." yeah, I know, you are stranger to this place too... but isn't that a bit not helpful?

Anyways, the Leaning Tower is magical. I didn't stay long though, since I wasn't planning to climb the tower. After Pisa I left for Lucca. I was interested about this little town since I looked at one picture and found it awesome--it was a town that has three layer's of houses building arond outside of each other. Too bad, I couldn't find the point where the picture was taken, even though I climbed up the village tower.

Cinque Terre is an awesome place!!! I will write more about this place tomorrow, but it's for sure a romantic place. Jacky said it right, it's a place for vacation within an vacation.