Lamezia Terme.

Day Forty-Four (Thursday) continued plus Day Forty-Five (Friday, technically, though not with the sleep that typically signals a new day):

So we (Kiki, Kate and I) caught a train from Alba at 8:30 as planned, getting some gelato from across the street from the train station since we got there early. We made it all the way to Milan and then couldn't get off at the right train station (there are three in Milan) because we couldn't figure out how to open the door and the train left the station... We had to go to the next stop (Milano Centrale), have someone else open the door for us, and then figure things out from there. Luckily an Irish boy sitting near us on the train noticed our confusion and told us about a bus that went from Milano Centrale to Bergamo Airport (one of Milan's three airports) which would let us avoid having to walk from the Bergamo train station as we had planned to do. So we waited with Cormick (the Irish boy) but the last bus scheduled to come never came so we were stuck until 4 the next morning.

Two girls from Connecticut were also waiting for the bus that never came so the 6 of us teamed up to fight the night and catch the 4 o'clock bus in the morning. Side note: one of girls told me that Florence has an amazing leather market so I'm waiting to make my decision on the leather handbag from my previous post until after I've gone to Florence (sometime in April) and seen what I can find there. First we camped out in McDonald's for an hour until it closed at 1. Then we wandered around and eventually found an "art" bar that let us stay until 2:30. After that we went to a panini cart and fueled up and found an ATM. By then (3:30), the bus was already waiting at the train station and we got on an PASSED OUT. We woke up at the airport only because Cormick woke us up. Otherwise we might still be on that bus. We got through the airport, checked in, got through security, and then passed out in the waiting area (I stayed awake so we wouldn't miss boarding) for half an hour before boarding.

At the "art" bar in Milan.

We got on the plane easily enough and Kiki and I passed out before the plane even took off (I don't even remember taking off or anything--ridiculous). In Lamezia, when the plane landed, we walked along the road/highway from the airport to the hostel because we were cheap and thought it wouldn't be as unusual as it turned out to be. We were quite the hot topic in Lamezia, walking along the sides of roads, having pale skin and generally looking out of place. Lots of honking, hollering and heckling. It was awkward.

We checked into our hostel and napped until 11:30 when I got up and took a shower. Then we went out and looked for a place to have lunch. Lamezia is broken into three different sub-cities and our hostel was in the smallest of the three (Sant'eufemia Lamezia, where the airport is based) so finding something to eat was quite a task at first. The town was very small (almost painfully--wouldn't want to live there) and most of the venues were bars with just coffee, drinks, and croissants. We wanted something more substantial so we walked until we found paninis in a bar a bit of a walk from the hostel. This was to become our go-to lunch spot. Delicious bread.

Then we checked the bus schedule at our hostel to see when the next bus to the other towns was. It wasn't for another hour so we took that time to shop at the Chinese Market nearby. Kate and I got "going out" shirts of the rayon/jersey family and Kiki bought some black leggings to polish off her birthday outfit for this weekend. The bus came at 12:40 and we got off at the second-largest city, Lamezia Sambiase. We walked around the town (it really was more of a town than a city), looking at the houses and gardens, etc. Not very interesting except for pictures. It was a gloomy, cold day so it was hard to marvel at the houses just because they were in Italy and thus automatically marvelous. We attracted much attention while walking. Much staring.

We eventually found a bar to go in an have a snack at while warming up and then headed back onto the street, heading down the road the bus had come up earlier that day when it dropped us off. It was a pretty walk (parts of it, at least) and we saw lush, green olive orchards (or at least I think they were olive orchards) with pretty yellow flowers in them. Lots more honking ensued. Eventually we got cold and wanted to head back to the hostel so we waited at a bus stop. Turns out that it took 2 HOURS for a bus to come, even though the schedule at the hostel had said one came AT LEAST every hour. It was quite awful, sitting in the cold (we had a persistent chill when we got back to the hotel) being stared and ogled and honked at. We were offered a ride by a car full of guys and some guy even pulled up behind the bus stop and stared at us from his car, potentially doing unsavory things inside the car...

Olive orchard.

Eventually we caught a bus back to our town and Kiki and Kate took hot showers to save themselves from a permanent chill and I huddled in bed under blankets. Then we got dressed again and went out to find dinner. Luckily the hotel man directed us to a place nearby called Europa and it was DELICIOUS. All three of us ordered orichette (dish-shaped pasta) with shrimp cream sauce and a contorni (sides) buffet which had lots of fresh vegetables and desserts. A man we briefly talked to at the buffet ordered us (or so we think--the waitress didn't say so) limoncello shots. Slightly creepy but with benefits. After dinner we walked back to the hostel, bundled up for bed and went to sleep early--9:00.

Day Forty-Six (Saturday):

We slept for about 12 hours and woke up at 10:30. I have never slept so long in my life but I needed it and could have gone on sleeping. I showered and we went to get lunch at the panini place from the day before. Then we caught a bus to Lamezia Nicastro, the largest of the three "cities." We walked up the length of the town to the top of the hill to see its Castle, the only real tourist attraction around aside from the beach. Again the day was gray and cold (eventually drizzly) so we held the beach off for our last day which the weather report had forcasted sun and warmer weather for. After walking up to the Castle which, naturally, was closed, we walked back down through the narrow streets, eventually finding the main shopping street but it was siesta time so everything was closed. We did find a small bar, though, and bought cookie goodies. I even found pignolis! P.S. "Pignoli" means "pine nut" in Italian and really the cookie we know as a "pignoli" can be with almond slices on top. It's really just a gooey almond cookie. Delish.

The top part of Lamezia Nicastro, the largest of the three Lamezia towns.

When we were done in Nicastro (around 3ish), we caught a bus back to our hotel and warmed up inside our room. Around 5ish we went to a nearby "American" bar and had drinks. It was only "American," as far as I could tell, because there were classic-style Cokes in the fridge and the only function of the store was to buy drinks whereas many Italian-style bars sell croissants and other food. We went back to Europa for dinner (delicious again, I had pizza and the girls had gnocchi) and then went to bed early again (there really isn't anything to do in Lamezia in March, if you couldn't tell already)--around 9ish.

Day Forty-Seven (Sunday):

Slept until 9 (11 hours!) and then showered. It was Sunday, though, so we couldn't get paninis from our usual place so we had to settle for an inferior bar, the only one in town open on Sunday... Then we went back to the room and packed up and checked out of our room, leaving out bags in the hotel lobby with the hotel man (no worries--we were the only ones in the hotel...).

Luckily Sunday was beautiful!!! We didn't even have to wear coats. It was glorious. We walked 3 km to the beach along a country road and then 1 km along the beach to a small beach town we saw in the distance. With it being both March (off season) and Sunday, the town was absolutely dead but I did manage to get a bottle of water from a bar so I didn't die of dehydration. We sunbathed on the beach and generally hung out and then headed back to town, at one point escorted by a shepherd and his sheep! We were beat by the time we got back but still had a very full day ahead of us... We had lunch at the cafe where we had breakfast and then walked to the airport since there was nothing else to do. We walked along the street again and got many stares and honks and even a vehicular stalker who would drive ahead, pull into a side street and then turn around and drive past us again. Ugh.

The beach!

This shepherd made the walk back from the beach worth every blistery step.

At the airport we hung out for 4 hours at the gate, doing much reading and eating of snacks. We called Dan and worked with him to figure out a train schedule from Bergamo to Alba the next day. Eventually we got on the plane but it was delayed as people quibbled about checking carry-on baggage that wouldn't fit. Apparently the passengers involved were rude because the pilot had them kicked off the plane by the police. Much drama, much waiting, none of which was welcomed by anyone. Ugh again. We were so finished by this point with all the walking and general tiredness of the weekend, despite the 12 and 11-hour binge-sleeps. We were delayed 30 minutes for this nonsense but eventually took off.

The flight was pretty boring because my eyes were too tired from reading while waiting for the plane to do any more reading and I couldn't sleep so I just sort of stared. We landed 20 minutes late (10:10) and, though we had arranged with our hostel for a ride from the airport to the hostel, we were unable to find the ride and had to take a taxi (20 euro...). All of which was stressful and ate up valuable sleeping time.

We checked into the hostel around 10:45 and promptly slept for the 5 hours we had time for before our train out in the morning.

Day Forty-Eight (Monday):

• Woke up at 4:10am and got dressed, grabbed an ice cream from the vending machine (I love early morning ice cream--yes, I'm weird, whatever), and was outside by 4:25 to wait for the taxi. However, the taxi never showed up so I went back to the hostel, rang the bell to wake up the receptionist, and she told us to take a big tour bus with a large group of Polish Christian school 9th graders to the train station. It was the slowest bus EVER and we ended up missing our train by 2 MINUTES. I was so pissed. None of this was even our fault.
• Waited for an hour in the (cold) Bergamo train station for the next train to Milano
• Trains from then on progressed as normal with us getting off at each stop we would have gotten off at had our schedule worked flawlessly (i.e. without the delay missing the train caused) and managed to find connection trains without having to wait too long
• Did have to illegally ride a train we had reserved for last night but rode this morning but we didn't get found out so oh well! I hardly felt guilty after getting so screwed over by Fate, the Italian train system, and the Traveling Gods.
• Finished my book.
  
• Took a bus (which we miraculously found) from Asti to Alba for our last leg and got into Alba around 10:15pm.
• Promptly skipped class but not without much hassling from teachers and Dan alike. Whatever. It was ridiculous to interrupt class by coming in late.
• Checked email and did other glorious Internet-related things that I had missed over the VERY long weekend without Internet.
• Went to Italian.
• Had a very good phone interview with the man from the American Horticultural Society and feel confident he will offer me the internship later this week. No idea what I'll do if he does since I would most likely need to live in the city if I accepted...
• Walked around Alba (glorious day!) and stopped in a chocolate boutique.
• BLOGGED.
• Duchessa tonight and not much else!
• Bed
  

List of all Creeper Alert Events that happened in Lamezia:

1. over 100 honks and stares
2. bought limoncello by Buffet Man
3. man pulled behind our bus stop to stare , potentially doing unsavory things in his car
4. offered a ride from the bus stop
5. offered a ride from a vampire (awful teeth)
6. Creeper Stalker Man who stalked us in his car as we walked to the airport
7. "It Is Dangerous" Man who pulled off to the side of the highway to tell us walking alongside the highway was dangerous.
   

All in all, Lamezia was ok. Underwhelming. The weather was sucky and there was NOTHING to do since it was off season AND a small town in general. And getting to and from there was just a general disaster resulting in a lot of stress and lack of sleep. So...yeah. Intense, very long weekend. A good bit of it was enjoyable enough and being at the beach and that whole walk (though I was exhausted) was nice. But not my favorite trip so far.

Pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=158637&id=504487681&l=0c0fb35c5e