Hotel Regina Acqui Terme

... them like that any more (thank f**k!). I can't even remember how to ask for 2 beers (which is my current minimum requirement. It's 3 when Jamie's around). The lack of lingistic skills I have would be acceptable in most circumstances, but travelling with a Yank who is fluent in 2 languages that most Americans are even aware exist?!? Now that just doesn't seem right.

so left avignon today with thoughts to head to cinque terre, but due to traffic jam only made it as far as arenzano. found a cute pensione and jason was getting sick of driving so seemed like a good place to stop. tried a few others but was like walking through a sad run down old people town so didn't make it more than 5 mins there. well, happy hour time now, so will write more later....

... Full of Spanish students and odd locals watching NCIS and old Ted Danson movies in Italian. Also wathced a bit of Italian Deal or No Deal which seemed to like playing the themes from Halloween, Schindlers List, The Rock/Crimson Tide, and other various movies. However, the old ladies which ran the place were really nice and mothering.

I did curse the place when I tonight went out to get food and found that the local ...

... my hands on it! When I got on the roof I had to slowly pry the inside of the sunroof open through that little crack I could stick my fingers through (Thank god I have small hands) I got it open a little bit but then it stuck….so Chris found a branch and I used that to pull the rest of the cover open! Now we have a great view of the keys on the front driver’s seat but still no way of getting them! Our initial attempts to open the door using a stick through the sunroof ...

... and round and round the city on the buses, walked around the port, some piazza's etc, chatted about the difference in Italian and Australian lives...and we came to the conclusion that Italians do their best (and succeed) at making life difficult!! Chiara has more Italian blood than me...and wasn't as lucky as me to get her passport. How frustrating!! By the end of the day i nearly got to the train station late because of the stupid buses. And I wasn't entirely sure ...

... hier noch ein paar Bilder vom Schiff und vom Mitternachtsbuffet.

Sicher kann man in den wenigen Stunden die man in den einzelnen Städten ist eine Stadt nicht richtig kennen lernen. Man kann nicht jedes berühmte Gebäude anschauen oder alle Museen besuchen. Aber man bekommt doch einen Eindruck von der Stimmung, den Leuten, deren Mentalität. Und es macht Lust auf mehr :) Mehr Städte mit mehr Zeit und vielleicht ein bisschen mehr Sonnenschein, in den nächsten Ferien vielleicht...

... there meant an extra 10-hour trip. So I decided not to go. After sometime, we decided to go to Genova then to Paris the next day. I cancelled the previous booking of my hotel in Paris and booked one on Orbitz. I got a much better deal... our original hotel was over 200 euros per night. The new one in a 4-star Best Western is about 100.

Clara took us to the station while Ricca stayed asleep. We made ...

... they left for McDonald's. I met with Ricca at about 7pm but Mom and Janet were gone. Ricca and I went around to look for them. Later they returned to the plaza. After that we had a long meal in Shanghai Restaurant with Ricca's papa and his gf. They don't speak Cantonese. Food came really slowly and they weren't authentic.

Ricca ...

... that limited some of what we could do; so she read her books. Delaney took to the ocean like a fish, and met a couple of friends, Juliana and Charlotte. They swam and played for about 5 hours. Micki and I also went swimming in the harbor. Again, a perfect day! That evening instead of going out to dinner, I cooked dinner consisting of insalata Caprese antipasto, trophie pasta with Cinque Terre-made fresh pesto, pizza from the trattoria down the stairs and of course ...

... I could find. As a result, I got fried. That night after dinner, we decided to take a bottle of wine out to the seawall to cool off. We watched as the moon beams reflecting from the water seemed to follow us no matter where we stood, and we sat down to watch the waves massage the rocks. We both talked about how we really love being around the ocean and probably didn't take advantage of it as much as we should have in New York. But then again, you don't really think ...