June 27, 2017. Rome, Italy. (Harrison: blog content; Eden: stenographer.) Today was our first morning in Italy. We had a very nice house for our Air BNB [in Savona]. There was a balcony and on the balcony, Elliot found a cat on the railing. He told me and Helena to come outside so we did. The cat was black with gray stripes and looked like it was stuck. We decided to help it but we didn’t exactly know how but we decided to bring it down to the floor. But then it looked like it wanted to go inside. Mom said it couldn’t go inside. So then we brought it to the front door and down the stairs. When we left, it was really hard to get out of the driveway because it was really tight. Dad wanted to get some coffee so we stopped and when he came back out he was laughing, because the coffee shop guy forced him to take a tiny little metal spoon about the size of two and half inches. We also had to get diesel and so we stopped at a place and me and Helena wanted to clean the windows with a cleany-thingamabober.

Then there was a long drive through tunnels and bridges until we found a place close to where we were gonna go next (La Spezia). We parked there and then we got to the place where we were, which was a train station. We had to get tickets but the one machine didn’t work so we had to use the other machine, which did work. [From La Spezia we took the train to Riomaggiori, the southern most of the famous Cinque Terre — the Five Cities, which are beautiful coast mountainous towns that perch at the edge of the sea.]

When the train came, it wasn’t a double decker train but it was still a nice train. And it was a train ride about seven minutes long and when it was over, we were a little confuzzlized so Mom asked someone where to get to the place where we were going and the person said it was under a bridge and so we went under the bridge and came up to the place. It was like a town/road thing, I don’t know how to explain it but it was really small with lots of things to do like eat and shop and eat and shop and eat and shop more. [It is a bit unique: Riomaggiori sits right up against the sea on the side of a mountain, so the streets are windy and small and curve up the side of the mountain.] So then we walked up a TON of stairs for like FOREVER.

When we got to the top of the mountain thingy, it was a super nice view of the sea. The Mediterranean Sea. There were a couple of restaurants and I also did a cartwheel. We saw a little castle but it wasn’t much of a castle at all. We walked all the way back down tons of steps through the town and put our feet in the Mediterranean Sea. (Mom: which is the third country that you’ve put your feet in!) True fact. And then when we were done we went back up to the place with lots of places to do [the main town street, which curves steeply uphill] where you could shop and eat and shop and eat and shops some more and eat some more. We shopped to eat at a place called Mama Mia and I don’t know why they named it that, it is SUCH a weird name, but they had good food so I don’t really care. I got hot dog pizza, Helena got Hawaiian pizza, Dad got a ham sandwich thingymajigger, Eden got pesto pizza, Elliot got French fries and fish, fish and chips, and mom didn’t get anything, she had a little bit of everything sort of.

Then we went back to the train station where we got all confuzzlized and mom had to ask another person where to go. Me and Helena decided to save our weird pizza stuff until the train. But it took a long time for the train to come so I sorta regretted not eating until the train arrived and I don’t know if Helena regretted it too. When we got on the train, once again it was like seven minutes, and me and Helena STILL didn’t finish our weird pizzas when we arrived at the train stations. When we went to the parking place me and Helena ate our pizzas in the car-car. Then once again it was a looooong ride to the next place [1.25 hours!] and the next place was the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Before it was a leaning at a degree of 5.5 but when we saw it was leaning at a degree of 3.7. I learned that from the book. (Helena: No, I told you!!) No, I learned it from the book, not Helena.

We stayed there for like half an hour and did perspective shots with the leaning tower of Pisa. When we got back to the car-car, we got some ice cream on the way and dad dropped some of the ice cream. We got the colors of the Italian flag: pistachio as green, lemon as white, and strawberry as red. It wasn’t a very long walk to the van and when we did get to the van we had a three hour drive to Rome and we did two stops for the bathroom on the way.

The entrance to the parking garage in Rome wasn’t very big and we almost scraped the side with the van. [We are lucky to be in the very center of Rome, in the old city!] We had about one inch, maybe less than, on either side. But thankfully, Dad was a good driver and got us safely through. Even though the parking garage wasn’t very big, there was still a couple of spots where cars could park. We only took out two suitcases, three bags, and four backpacks. It wasn’t much so we quickly arrived at our new house. It was sorta strange because the door was a little overlapping with a restaurant right next to us. [Because it is on a pedestrian street that is lined with restaurants and shops!] It was also weird because the door was glass with black bars across and we could see in the house. It was an apartment so there were lots of stairs that we had to climb to get up to the house.

The house [flat] was not very big but all of us could fit in and there were enough beds. There were two beds where two people could fit, and two beds where one person could fit. Eden and I are going to sleep in the ones where only one person could fit, Mom and Dad are going to fit in a bed where two people can sleep, and so are Elliot and Helena. We didn’t have much time to set up because we were going to meet some of our friends from Rhode Island [The Denzy-Lewis family!]. We were going to meet up at a water fountain place thingy and go a pizzeria and eat pizza and eat ice cream [ahem: gelato!] for dessert. By the time we were completely done eating it was like 11:40pm but I wasn’t really tired.

Now my parents are making me go to bed because it’s midnight. Goodnight.