Trouble in Paradise

There we were. Eating cold pizza on a curb in a thunderstorm in the dark. How did we get there you ask? Let us explain. 

We spent Saturday hiking through vineyards and up and down old stairs through the mountains of picturesque Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre means "5 towns" and we had set a goal to hoof our way through all of them in a day. It had been a truly gorgeous day.

Our legs were sore from the eight hour hike but we were feeling good about surviving various lizard attacks (okay... sightings) throughout the day.

We were more than ready to eat dinner, climb the 356 stairs to our hostel, play some cards (which we later found out is illegal in Italy- google it!) and go to sleep.

As we were waiting for our take-away pizza, we were approached by the hostel owner who had led us up 356 stairs (emphasis on this number... remember the eight hours of hiking?) the day before. In his broken English, he half explained-half acted out the message that we needed to immediately go get our bags and move out of our room to the dorm at the bottom of the hill. Confused and frustrated, we took our pizza to the hostel office and attempted to get some clarity on the situation. They had put us in the wrong room which was now double booked, hence the need for us to move... right now. 

After about half an hour of broken English and less than polite tones (cough cough... Olivia...) we concluded that yes, both parties were frustrated and what was done was done. Up the hill we went, pizza boxes in hand, to gather our belongings and trudge back down the hill on trembling legs. 

When we arrived at our room, we discovered that they had taken the liberty to gather our belongings for us and the new folks had already moved in. Our things were mixed together in a small room, so we did our best to sort our stuff into the correct bags as the hostel guy waited. Jill was doing fine until she picked up her new shoes that were mysteriously soaking wet. "Why are my shoes wet?" she asked with her very best I'm-a-teacher-and-I- mean-it voice. He didn't seem to understand her question so naturally Olivia repeated it slower and louder: "Why. Are. Her. Shoes. WET??!" Surprisingly, this didn't help his comprehension, nor did it dry her shoes, even when repeated in slower, various forms. (Water on her shoes... WHY?? They are WET. Not before, but now... WATER...)

Balancing two boxes of lukewarm pizza and carrying our ever-gaining bags, our legs quivered as we walked down 356 stairs (remember, we had just hiked up and down stairs for the past 8 hours). Just to spice things up, Olivia's sandal came undone and Twyla got in the way of a defecating bird as we took the walk of shame to the other side of town for people who ordered "dorm room- not private room." 

We arrived to our new abode and quickly told hostel man "yep, we get it" as he explained how to open the doors and told us not to throw trash out the window. Clearly, we didn't really "get it" about the doors, as we couldn't figure out how to open the double door in order to fit the pizza out so we could enjoy our (less than piping hot) Italian pizza outside. The hostel man asked for "attention, please" and he opened it for us. As we made our exit, Olivia exclaimed, "I'm just going to throw this pizza in the ocean!" (She refrained.) As we sat down to eat, the skies darkened, the rain began to come down on us, lightening illuminated the skies just enough to tell if we were eating the margherita or Hawaiian pizza, and thunder echoed loud enough to drown out our sighs of discontentment. 

So there we were, eating cold pizza on a curb, in a thunderstorm.