Cinque Terre -Italian Riveria

Me on Lover's lane

Pretty

Lovers Lane

Neat Rocks

So my mom and I decided to take a day trip to Cinque Terre, which is located on the Italian Riveria.  It is also considered to be one of the most romantic places.  Yes I went there with my mom. Cinque Terre means "five lands", so it is five villages and you can hike or take a train between the villages.  My mom and I made it to three of the five villages: Monterosso, Manarola, and Riomaggiore.  It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

The trail from Riomaggiore to Manarola is called the Via Dell'Amore ("Love Walk").  It is called this because previous to the walkways being built people from the village married people from their own village only. When the road was created, it made easy for the people from Manarola and Riomaggiore to meet and of course fall in love. 

We took the train to Cinque Terre and on the ride back I saw live wild rats for the first time in my life.  I also used the toilets and found out that whatever you flushed landed on the tracks.  Yes, this is gross.  It was a weird experience to flush a toilet and see the train tracks. 

Interesting Notes for people who decide to go here.  Depending on the time of the day, will determine if major trains stop at all five cities.  My mom and I intended to only go to two cities but we wanted to walk from the second city to the first.  So we waited after the train stopped in the first city and we had to get off on the last city. 

Graveyard in Paris

Me in front of Oscar Wilde's grave

Jim Morrison's grave

Père Lachaise Cemetery is the cemetery that we went as part of the Gothic Tour of Paris trip.  It is a world famous cemetery that holds the remains of several famous people including: Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde and Pierre Abelard and Heloise, the French Romeo and Juliet.

Paris River Cruise at Night

The Eiffel Tower lit up at night.  That is the moon on the right.  And that is a bird flying.

Notre Dame

A bridge.

Pisa Again

Again doing the infamous picture at Pisa.

Catacombs in Paris

This is me and Kim at the Catacombs in Paris.

Here are skulls and femurs surrounding one of the support stuctures in the catacombs.

me with skulls designed in a heart shape.  Yep.

This is to show how short the catacombs are.  I said wowser, I feel like a giant in here.

the ground was wet here.  And there was water droplets falling on me.  Weird.

Misadventures in Dogsitting

This is a gift the dogs brought into the house.  At first I thought "they brought in a weird ball".  Then I looked closer and noticed the ball had prickles on it and thought "why would someone put prickles on a dog toy?".  At this moment I realized that it was a hedgehog.  As I walked closer to it, I noticed it heaving, yes it was breathing.  The dogs brought me the gift of a live hedgehog.  This picture was taken after I put the dogs in a bathroom and the hedgehog thought to itself that it was safe to walk around and make its home inside the house.

This is when I finally got it swept into a dust pan.  I was trying to portray how big this thing was.  It was not one of those small hedgehogs you see in the pet store.  I struggled to get the hedgehog onto the dustpan because it gripped the rug with its feet.

So I put the hedgehog outside.  It just sat there.  I went out about a half hour to see if it has died but it was dark and I could not see so I used the flash of my camera.  This is the picture I got.  The hedgehog giving the mad stink eye.

German American club - Stammisch

The ladies of Stammisch and me in our dirndls.

Our president at the pig roast.

Our president singing at the pig roast.