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Graham composed this.

We ate dinner on both New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day at the San Pedro Cafe in downtown Hudson where the food, service, and atmosphere are always fabulous.

All I can say is WOW.

It’s run out of their church, St. Matthew, in Wausau, Wisconsin. The image on the right above is from the cover of the  church’s June bulletin, showing photos of Helping Hands volunteers.

The guys will be working in and around the town of Maggotty, in the parish of St. Elizabeth.

Sept. 27 update: When Collin and Amanda came to visit, we all paid her a visit for some sweet rolls and coffee.

The blog site is up at elevenseven09 (sign the guestbook!), the B&B has been reserved (Blue Boy Inn), and more details should be forthcoming soon.

I just can’t decide what to wear.

This is a short video clip of the scene and the music.

Rick Steves writes briefly about Piva’s guitar-playing here. We got lucky, as this photo can attest. And here’s a journal entry by someone who had a similar experience in 1999.

We’re both immediately in love with the salty foccacia as a pastry instead of the sweeter fluffier stuff.  We briefly meet Gianni staffers Giovianni and Marissa, both mentioned in Rick Steve’s book, get Robbie’s passport back (hotels typically hold one as a security precaution), and head up to the train station for the 5 minute trip to Monterosso where we need to confirm a place to stay for next week. Monterrosso’s train station is at the "new" end of town where the larger hotels are (built in the 60s?) and the bigger beach. Taxis and miscellaneous service vehicles are allowed on the road along the beachfront but otherwise, the street is mainly filled with pedestrians, as the walkway along the beach is not nearly wide enough to accommodate everyone. I can’t imagine what is must be like during the peak of tourist season in June.

The day is warm, sunny and clear and we’re both going apeshit with our cameras, astounded at the photo opps. As we head towards the old part of town, we opt for the walkway along the cliff instead of the pedestrian tunnel and we spot a brick walkway going further up the cliff. We learn later in RS book that this is the Switchback of the Monks, leading to the convent XXX, now a guest house. We explore the church, wonder at the painting (a Van Dyck) and continue up the trail, marvelling at the view of old Monterosso, wondering what’s at the top. We’re delighted to discover it’s a huge cemetary, complete with family crypts, spectacular marble tombs and modest graves, many marked with fresh flowers. The views of both the old and new parts of town are stellar and with the bright blue sky, colorful vegetation, and old structures, we probably take 100 photos each.

When we descend, we grab a yummy tuna salad lunch at an outdoor "tratoria" and then ask locals to point us to Casa Manuel’s place and we find it after huffing and puffing our way up 130 stairs. We’re delighted with Manuel, the room, and the view (more on all three later) and reserve it for seven days next week.

As we stroll along the beach in the old part of town, we come across a group of mostly older Italian men playing bocce ball in a little facility designed expressly for it. They appear to take the game quite seriously, as there are few smiles and  most of them talk to one another quite loudly. We’re not sure if they’re mad or posturing or what, but it’s quite entertaining and of course, photo heaven.

We head back to Vernazza and pay a visit to an Internet cafe (no cafe, just pcs) so we can dump our photos onto CDs (8 Euros each) before dinner at Gianni’s. It’s our first bottle of Cinque Terra bianchi (white) and our first taste of achuga (anchovies) and we’re in ecstasy. Whoduh thunk sardines could taste so good? RS was right. If you hate anchovies like I do, give them a try in the Cinque Terra. We split an order of delicious pesto pasta XXX, follow it up with dessert of ???  and head out for an evening stroll along Vernazza’s main drag. I see a guy taking photos of a streetlamp. He sees me taking photos and we strike up a conversation after discovering we both "parla Englese." I ask him about the settings he’s using for night shots and he mentions that he just got the camera not too long ago at National Camera Exchange. "Are you from Minnesota by any chance?" I ask and he gives me a horrified look. "Yes, do I sound like it?" Mathew and his traveling partner Tim are both from St. Paul and are the first of many Minnesotans we meet on the trip.

We hear someone singing and playing guitar on the waterfront plaza and discover a  group of about a dozen Italian men gathered around a table where two guys are passing a guitar back and forth while they sing Italian songs. Robbie later finds out that one of them, Piva, owns a restaurant up the street. We vow to eat there at least once before we leave.

We end the night with a moonlight walk along the waterfront. Perfetto!

When we come back to the gate, it’s apparent that we missed the shuttle to our plane. We were there 15 minutes early but I’d forgotten that a shuttle was necessary. Damn. Oh well, we’ll figure it out. It’s not a disaster, just a minor setback. Suddenly the gate attendant looks at her computer and says something like "non departe" and indicates that we can start boarding the shuttle. And  suddendly dozens of people line up behind us. Yeah! Within a half hour our propeller plane swoops out over the Ligurian Sea for a landing in Genova, the birthplace of Christopher Columbus.

Our big luggage bag shows up on the carousel but not Robbie’s. I find the lost and found desk and they tell us promptly that the bag is still back in Amsterdam and won’t arrive at our hotel in Vernazza for another 36-48 hours. This bag has all of Robbie’s clothes and makeup but it doesn’t faze her in the least. She’s got her meds with her, the toiletries are in the big bag, and the clothes she has on are comfy for any situation.

We have a hard time figuring out where to catch the shuttle to the train station and I experience the language barrier the first time… or maybe it’s more accurate to say, I experience my inhibitions the first time. I don’t know how to say "where do we catch the suttle bus to the train station" and I’m reluctant to just walk up to anyone and just start talking English. I finally ask a couple of construction workers on break with "shuttle bus to train station?" and they jump up to help, walking me over to a schedule hung on a post. "E qui!" It is here. 

We’re soon sandwiched on the shuttle bus careening around Genova (pronouced "genoa") and Robbie meets a woman from Northern Ireland who chats up a storm and is going to the station, too. We buy our train tickets for the week but then are stumped on how to find the right departure platform. I keep wandering around looking for a station worker of somekind, again reluctant to approach any of the travellers. Not so with Robbie.

She finds an Italian woman who speeks no English at all but is so eager to help that she starts teaching Robbie how to decipher the train arrival/departure board. And to my amazement, Robbie’s figuring it out. It starts to dawn on me that a smiling face, sparkly eyes and animated gestures are a lot more effective than my attempts to remember phrases from the phrase book. It’s another not-so-subtle reminder of why I married this woman and why I still love her.

On the train to Vernazza, we meet a Swiss family of four travelling to the Cinque Terre for a family reunion. Robbie’s chatting up a storm with the mother and when a view of the glistening Mediteranian pops up in the train window behind them, I snap a photo. And the mother gently, smilingly chides me for not asking permission. I apologize and then ask permission to take one and she says no, we all laugh, and keep chatting.

Suddenly we’re at the Levanto station and realize we have to get off. I don’t have my sandals on and have stuff scattered about the seats. We start a mad scramble to get off before the train starts up again and the son of the Swiss family jumps up to carry our heaviest bag off the train for me. I hoist my sandles in the window and wave goodbye.

When finally arrive in Vernazza, we find our hotel, Gianni Franzi, with a sign tacked on the door for us to pick up our keys at the gelato store around the corner. The clerk starts leading us up the walkway to our room… a  narrow, winding walkway, then stairs, then steps, then steep steps, more walkways, more steps, finally to a locked door. She unlocks it and we follow, expecting to find our room.

No, it’s a very narrow spiral staircase. I can barely fit our 55 pound bag up it and by this time, I’m sweating and panting while laughing in amazement.  At the top of the staircase, yet another one. "Holy buckets!" Robbie says in a perfect Minnesotan accent.

Finally we arrive at our comfy, extremely cozy room and collapse. A few steps away, we’re out on the shared private patio with a spectacular view of the ocean and cliffs. Omigodinheaven. We head back down to an outdoor cafe right on the harbor and have a liter of the house white wine and a pesto pizza. We’re exhausted but it’s dawning on us: we’re in freaking Italy! We head down the street for a gelato.

In early May, 1971, after a job interview on the first floor with a social worker named Tom Behr, I took a brief tour of the 3rd floor unit called Meagher Hall where I’d work if I got the job. At the end of the hallway was a linen closet, and there, on her knees rearranging its contents, was a woman named Robbie. Thirty four years and four months later, she’s in the window seat next to me as we make our way to Italy for a two week vacation.

I’m not sure how much time I’ll take to write about our trip while we’re there but since it’s been a while since I’ve done extensive journaling or reflective blogging, I’m thinking it might be interesting to do.

We’re on this trip due to the generosity of Tyson, our #2 son. He gave us a cruise on the Rhine River as a present, a token of his gratitude for our seeing him through a bad car accident and subsequent back surgeries. We tried to take the trip a couple of years ago but our daughter Gilly’s back surgeries derailed that.  Robbie’s pursuit of the recalcitrant trip insurance company finally paid off.

And after another year of figuring out a convenient time to go, we’re off to the Cinque Terre, an area of the Ligurian Riviera that I discovered online, only to find out that dozens of people we know have been there. None of them, however, stayed more than a few days so we generally got a jawdrop reaction when we’d tell we’d be there for 14.

I twice checked out Italian audiotapes from the library but only got through about 3 hours… not enough to really be helpful but psychologically, it’s made a difference. I picked up the Rick Steves’ Italian pocket dictionary/phrase book and I’m determined to use my attempts at the language as an ice breaker with the people we meet. I’ll look foolish, I’m sure, but hopefully it’ll be more on the endearing end of the scale and not the annoying.

I’m looking at the interactive map of the flight on the tv screen and it shows that we’re departing North America heading, heading out over the North Atlantic, about 4.5 hours from Amsterdam. Time to put on some warm socks, get started on the paperback I picked up last Saturday, The Perfect Storm, and experiment with the electronic pocket translator that Robbie bought. Ciao.