3 Weeks of Adventures with Ken

Here is a map of the places Ken and I have traveled to in the past 3 weeks. The blue marker is Forli. The green circles are places I had softball games. The most interesting markers are the red stars that show the most exciting places we got to tour around.

Before I get into the softball and the cities we traveled, let me start with a list of random things that went on these past 3 weeks.

• Because I have female roommates, my manager was nice enough to place me in an apartment up a few floors in my same building while my boyfriend was here. We had only one roommate in the apartment named Francesco (pronounced Fran-chess-co). Unfortunately, Ken was unable to manage to pronounce this Italian name and proceeded to call him Cheet the entire time. Cheet is from Sicily and just finished up his 4 years at university here in Forli. Ken and Cheet were BFFS and bonded over soccer, boating, fishing, working out, music, and the “hot girl who works at the gelato shop down the street.” I am now Facebook friends with him so we can keep in touch. He left the day before Ken and left us a gift of his Italian flag he had hanging in his room!

• The timing of Ken’s visit happened to be for most of the duration of the World Cup. It was cool to be in Europe while the World Cup was going on except as soon as Italy lost out of the tournament, there was a lot less hype of it around.

• Ken does not have a sweet tooth. He never craves cookies or chocolate or ice cream or anything. But apparently gelato is his weakness. He was the one begging for us to go get gelato after dinner all the time!

• We had a slight seafood obsession while we were here. Whenever we went out to eat we always ordered at least two types of seafood. Our favorite was anything with shellfish like the pasta with mussels and clams or the mussels and clams in marinara. (Although I wasn't a fan of the swordfish and oysters I tried.)

• Ken got a haircut and a real shave while he was here! The barber didn't know any English so I tried my best to translate. So when he first started using the shaver to cut his hair I gasped because I thought I messed up the translation and he was going to have a shaved head. This didn't comfort Ken at all. But the guy knew what he was doing and it turned out great. And by great, I mean that it looks the same as it usually does. He had his first ever close razor shave too where he looked terrified most of the time even though he said it felt good and didn't hurt at all.

• Here comes the typical and cliché coffee comment. Yes, he loved the espressos and cappuccinos here. The only interesting thing about this is that instead of ordering one espresso at the bar… he would always order 2. Now he wants his own espresso machine at his house.

• It is very difficult to find ice in Italy. Ken wanted to fill up a cooler with ice to bring to my games or the beach and he went on a scavenger hunt around Forli trying to find it. The local grocery store had someone helping him who brought him into the back freezer section… still no ice. After lots of searching, he went to a bar and gave them the cooler and they filled it up with ice. So for the remainder of the trip when he wanted ice, he immediately went to a bar… but not after first making several comments about how he can’t believe there is nowhere to buy ice in Italy! He even tried to convince a little souvenir/drink shop by the beach to freeze water and sell ice and make money that costs them nothing.
• Everybody has been telling us that Italy is having a “strange season” due to the amount of rain that we've had here in June and July.

Softball

My last games of regular season were on that first Saturday that Ken was here. We were playing a good team, Collecchio, who we split with the last double header we played against them. The league takes the top 2 teams from each group to play in the play-offs. One team in our group was clearly in first place. But second place was between us, Collecchio, and Caserta. We beat Caserta both games we played them the first time, but the second time when we were supposed to play at their field, it got rained out. So the only way we wouldn't have to travel all the way down to southern Italy to play Caserta, is if we swept Collecchio. There was a good chance of thunderstorms at Collecchio on Saturday but when we arrived it hadn't started yet so we tried to get our games in. It was a really good first game that went back and forth. In the 7^th inning the game was tied 3-3. We started the top of the 8^th inning and we were able to score 1 run. All we needed was to go out in the field and get 3 outs and we would win the game. We got 1 out, but then there were runners on 2^nd and 3^rd with one of their best hitters, an American, up to bat. It had been raining a little bit up to this point but now it started coming down hard. We tried to wait it out but the rain wasn't stopping so we had to postpone the game until Wednesday! So on Wednesday, we traveled back to Collecchio and had to start where we left off in a very exciting part of the game. We intentionally walked the American, and then our pitcher struck out the next 2 batters and we won the game! We started the 2^nd game that was important for us to win so we wouldn't have to travel 7 hours to Caserta. Their American pitcher did a good job, and we ended up losing, unfortunately.

The next weekend we had to travel down to Caserta to play to see who would be going to the play-offs. We only had to win one of the two games to make play-offs. We won the first game and celebrated by going out to pizza after!

There are 4 teams in the play-offs and it’s a best of 5 game series.  We hosted the first two games against La Loggia. We had never played them before because they are in the other group. They had 3 Americans on their team! But only 2 are allowed in the lineup at one time. We lost both games, but the next weekend we traveled to La Loggia to try and make it to the Finals. We ended up winning the first game, but lost the second and we were out of the tournament. They are a good team though and 2 of their 3 Americans are from southern California!

Travel

Rimini

This is Rimini. It is an easy 30 minute train ride away from Forli and I had always heard about this beach town but hadn't gotten around to visiting until Ken came. After the first time we went, we returned 2 other times after because we loved it so much! From the train station, it's an easy 15 minute walk to the beach where as far as you can see are colorful umbrellas and beach chairs on the sand. Lining the beach behind these umbrellas are beach volleyball courts and restaurants. Right across the street behind the sand are countless hotels that line along the beach. The water was really warm and felt around 80 degrees. This was a very relaxing city that reminded us like we were back home in San Diego... except it felt more like a nice beach resort with all the food and umbrellas! At one of the ends of the beach there is a pier and a marina. There is a mini carnival-esque type place with a ferris wheel, mini golf, and cotton candy! We rented a 2 person bike one of the days and biked down the opposite direction to see if we could find the end of the umbrellas and hotels. After biking for over 30 minutes, and there didn't look like there was an end in sight, we decided to turn around. As we were turning in an intersection, we hit a biker!! (Well Ken did. He had steering control on his wheel.) The biker wasn't hurt and his bike was okay. But that was the only un-relaxing thing that happened whenever we went to Rimini.

Ravenna

Ravenna is another nearby city to Forli. I came here with my parents and Chelsea so if you are an avid reader of my blogs you already know that this is a town known for their mosaics. We had planned to come on this certain day and in the morning it was pouring rain. We were considering to change plans and not go, but we checked the weather and had hopes for it to stop raining. We put on our rain jackets and walked to the train station in the rain. Once we were on the train, it stopped raining and it ended up being a beautiful day. This was my third time here and I had already seen the churches and baptisteries, but Ken and I managed to get even more out of it. At each of the churches there are telephones you can pay 2 euros to get more information about where you are and what you are looking at. I didn't have much interest in it my first two times, but Ken and I did it at a few of the places. It was surprisingly really interesting! After we listened, we took the time to look around and find what was talked about. Sometimes it was finding the 12 mosaic apostles or finding all the stars on the ceiling but I definitely got more out of it this way. We rented bikes here (not the 2 person one so we had more control and didn't hit any bikers this time!) and we rode a little more around the city and found part of the marina as well.

 Florence

This was also my third time visiting Florence. But I got to see my former Ohio softball teammate, Paige! When she heard I was playing softball here, she made it an excuse to come visit Italy this summer. She was supposed to come to one of my games but once I found out about the bad weather, I told her to change her plans so she wouldn't be sitting in the rain maybe or maybe not watching softball. Luckily I was able to meet up with her in Florence! My train ride to Florence with Ken was pretty with green rolling hills which we decided was one of the prettiest train rides we had been on so far. We met up with Paige in front of the Duomo and then walked up to Piazzale Michelangelo to get the pretty view of Florence. We had dinner (courtesy of Jersey Mike Kemezis) at one of his favorite restaurants when he was in Italy and ordered a huge steak. We could see the big chunk of meat that our steak was coming from and they brought the huge slab of uncooked meat on a plate before they cooked it to make sure it was what we wanted. Unfortunately they didn't cook it that much and it was incredibly rare. But it was a really cool experience. After dinner Ken and I did some exploring around Florence at night which I hadn't done before.

Venice

I visited Venice with my parents and loved it. It was just as fun celebrating my birthday here with Ken. We arrived on the night of my birthday and we took a romantic gondola ride. Our gondola driver/tour guide who had been doing this for 7 years told us that it was way better that we did this at night. We found this to be true the next day when we saw the loud and busy canals with gondolas and realized that we liked our private tour way better. Ken enjoyed asking the technical questions about the boats and surrounding water. He told us facts about Venice as well as legends and stories about this unique city. Here are some of the interesting things we learned:

• Venice is made up of 155 islands.
• Every little bridge you see around Venice, connects the islands to one another.
• He designed his own gondola with an artist.
• A specific area we were boating in sometimes gets flooded at different times because of the tides.
• All of the islands are built upon wooden pillars.

We took a vaporetto (boat public transportation around Venice) to get to some of the other main sites the following day. 

Murano is an island known for their glass blowing. We went into a random glass blowing store where this rich owner gave us a free private hour tour of all 15 show rooms as well as an actual work room where glass blowing was being done. Everything we saw was so impressive... and so expensive. One of the cheapest things we found was 150 euros for one of the smallest cups. (But of course you should buy the entire 10 cup set.) It was really cool being able to see all of the incredible things they can do by glass blowing. 

I told Ken I wanted a picture with him and a boat. He starts walking closer and closer to this random boat until he jumps in for the picture!

From our gondola ride we learned that this next island we visited, Burano (not to be confused with the previous island, Murano), is known because every house is a different color. Not even a single shade of yellow is used more than once. No we didn't check ourselves if this was true or not... but it definitely was a beautiful and colorful place.

Our last stop was the famous St. Marks Square. This wasn't water oriented but the restaurants in the square had orchestras playing music. One of the orchestras were playing songs from The Sound of Music. There were a lot of small streets that were entertaining to walk aimlessly through. The only annoying part was these vendors who were trying to sell lasers and splat balls. There were lasers being shone all over the clock tower and buildings in the square at night and people throwing splat balls on the ground by our feet. Other than that, we absolutely loved Venice and it was our favorite city we had visited so far!

Cinque Terre

Cinque Terre (translated to 5 villages or 5 lands) is made up these 5 villages that are colorful towns in the notches of the hillside surrounded by vineyards and the sea. I came here with my parents and hiked from Monterosso to Vernazza which was not an easy hike but it was beautiful. 

The location of my last weekend of games (in La Loggia) was on the way to a convenient train station to get us to Cinque Terre. So on our way home on the bus, the manager said he would have the bus drop us off at the train station we needed. The only problem was, after my games got over, it was still about a 3 hour drive to the train station so we didn't get there until 3 in the morning! We were originally planning to stay the night at a hotel nearby the station, but with train times and wanting to spend the most time in Cinque Terre, we took the first train at 5 in the morning. The train station didn't even let us in until 4 in the morning so we were the only ones waiting outside. Finally we arrived in La Spezia at 7 in the morning, which is the city with a main train station that is only a 5 minute train ride away from the first village of Riomaggiore. We couldn't check into our hotel until 12 so we walked over to the marina, went to the tourist information center and planned out our next few days there. 

Here are the nicknames Ken came up with for the 5 villages he definitely wouldn't be able to pronounce since he couldn't even pronounce our roommate's name.

Rio = Riomaggiore

Man = Manarola

Corn = Corniglia

Naz = Vernazza

Rosso = Monterosso

There are hiking trails all over this region and we knew we wanted to do some sort of hiking while we were there. There are trails that link all 5 villages which we were interested in. But we were informed that the two easy and flat trails connecting the first villages (Riomaggiore to Manarola to Corniglia) were closed because of landslides. But there are still trails that get you from village to village, but you have to go up and over the hills and they take more than 30 minutes each. We decided we were in good enough shape to champ up this challenge the next day when it was supposed to be beautiful and we had some rest.

After planning what we wanted to do, we still had some time before we could check in to the hotel and get some sleep so we decided to take the 5 minute train to the first village, Rio. 

After doing a little of exploring, we went to the hotel and slept for a few hours until we woke up to a thunderstorm! After a few more hours, it cleared up a little and stopped raining. We decided we would take the train and head back to Rio for dinner. We got ready and headed to the train station. The tv monitors weren't working but after using my train knowledge and skills I have obtained these past few months, I figured out what platform we had to be on. At the time that our train was supposed to arrive, a train pulled up so we got on. After waiting about 5 minutes and the train wasn't moving, I was feeling less confident about my train expertise. I saw that the tv monitors had turned back on so I told Ken that I was gonna go check really quick and to stay by the doors in case I find something. I took 2 steps off so I could see the screen and realized that it was the wrong train. I ran over to tell him to get off and the train doors started closing. Like a movie, it felt slow motion where we were banging on the doors and pressing the open button and he was looking at me through the window as the train pulled away. The correct train pulled up right behind that one. While I was freaking out and trying to figure out where that train was headed, Ken apparently was just standing by the door waiting for it to stop so he could get off... unfortunately the next stop was 45 minutes later! He had all of the money and my phone in his backpack so that was one good thing. I went back to the hotel and found a random American sitting in the lobby on his phone and I asked him if I could use his phone to send an email. Luckily Ken figured out to get out my phone and saw my email I sent to myself and 2 hours later we met back at the train station. By that time, all the restaurants were closed and we had to settle for a "kebab" which is like a burrito. After a long and hectic day, we got a good night's rest and were ready to take on the next day.

We decided to do the hikes of all 5 villages. We left Rio around 11 and got to the last village, Monterosso, around 5. But that is including us walking around the villages a little when we got to each one. Here is the breakdown of the hikes:

Rio to Man- 55 min

Man to Corn- 1 hour 30 min

Corn to Naz- 1 hour

Naz to Rosso- 1 hour 10 min

Although all of the hikes were challenging, we thought the two hardest hikes were the first two ones. These were the ones where the super easy trails were closed due to landslides. There is a reason these trails were created to get from village to village!

I used my Endomondo Sports Tracker on my phone to record the entire hike and here is a link to the information from it: 

http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/365191052/11311274

Here is a breakdown for a little more in depth according to this app:

Distance: 12.8 miles

Duration: 7 hours 19 min

Calories: 4008

Average Speed: 1.7 mph

Max Speed: 6.1 mph

Minimum Altitude: 152 feet

Maximum Altitude: 1532 feet

Total Ascent: 4906 feet

Total Descent: 4993 feet

It was a lot of steps and up and down over the hills with great views of the villages, vineards, and the sea. We bought a "Step by Step" necklace where you get a bead with the name from each village when you make it there. Everybody was impressed that we were hiking all 5 in one day! We tried to beat the times that other people told us it took to do each hike. We beat every time we were given! It was fairly easy to find the trails because there were signs with arrows pointing you in the direction of the villages, as well as red and white markers along all the trails so we knew we were going the right way. It was a really tiring day but well worth it. 

Vineyards on the hills

Notice the steep stairs behind me

One type of sign leading the way

One of the villages from above

Trail signs painted on the groud

More signs leading you to villages

Typical view of the sea and vineyards

Red and white markers

Steep and rocky and uneven path

One of the villages behind us

Vernazza (I think?)

Vernazza (I'm sure)

Vineyards up close

After the long day we took the train back, showered, and got dressed up for dinner in Rio that we missed the night before.

Wow! Ken with no hat AND a shirt!

Our last day in Cinque Terre we decided to take the ferry from La Spezia all the way to the last village, Monterosso. It took about an hour and a half and was a beautiful view of the villages from the water. We got a tour about Cinque Terre while we were on the ferry which was interesting. Unfortunately, I got a little seasick and couldn't enjoy it as much as Ken did but I was still able to see and appreciate the enormous hills we hiked over the day before. 

When we made it to the last village we had lunch by the water and then took a train to Manarola because we didn't get to enjoy that village as much during our hike the day before. There was a rock that people were jumping off of into the water and conveniently Ken was already wearing his bathing suit so he was able to enjoy the jump.

Manarola

Our favorite place was Cinque Terre with Venice being a close second. Our favorite part was the hike of all 5 villages. It was Ken's first time in Europe and I think he got a good taste of Italy. Overall we had a great time in Italy these past 3 weeks and got to see a lot of cool places together and do a lot of fun things!

GELATO TRACKER

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