Our Free Weekend

This past weekend we were given what they called a "Free Weekend," meaning, that we didn't have classes on Friday and the school did not have anything planned for us. So, we are encouraged to travel and go do something on our own. Myself, along with Nina, Kayla, and Karina decided to go to Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre are five beautiful coastal towns right on the Mediterranean that are connected via multiple hiking trails, national parks, etc. However, we decided to stay in La Spezia, which is a less "touristy" area about ten minutes away from Cinque Terre and a lot cheaper. We actually found a great deal where we rented an entire two bedroom apartment complete with a full kitchen for the weekend. Upon hearing this, Henry and Kevin asked if they could join us. Our thoughts: the more the merrier. The weekend was definitely an exciting one, but so not what I was anticipating. When we arrived in La Spezia on Friday we were all pretty tired and it was right in the middle of the afternoon during "Siesta" (which is when all the shops/businesses close for a few hours for lunch/naptime, Italy, right?). So, since there was really nothing to do, and we were too lazy to go to Cinque Terre that afternoon, we just hung around the apartment and watched Power Rangers. Essentially, a majority of the weekend turned into relaxing in the apartment and not doing much. It was a lot of fun and quite enjoyable, just not the educational or adventurous weekend on the Italian coast that I was expecting. Saturday morning, when we had planned on going to Cinque Terre, we actually spent taking Nina to the hospital because she had sliced her foot open the night before and it was still bleeding rather profusely. Actually, she had the door onto the balcony opened into the back of her achilles tendon because we heard a rather daunting religious procession taking place right under our apartment on the street outside. Luckily, going to the hospital to get her fixed up wasn't as stressful as it could have been and we finally made it to Cinque Terre. Unfortunately, by the time we made it there it had started raining and was rather cold. We only made it to one of the five towns, walked to the beach, took some pictures, and then realized how miserable it was being outside so found a place for lunch. We found a cute little pizzeria that was warm and cozy and each ate an incredibly large, delicious pizza. By the time we finished eating the weather had only gotten worse and was now snowing. We promptly decided it was time to go back to our warm apartment. Thus, I hardly spent any time in the actual destination of the weekend, but had a very good time relaxing with friends, cooking dinners (which also made for a very cheap weekend), and exploring the not-so-exciting town of La Spezia. The one aspect of La Spezia that I enjoyed the most was the architecture. The styles were very different from the medieval style of Siena and most other places that I've been to. It was very cute and picturesque. There was also a market on Friday that we spent a lot of time at and us four girls bought matching "500 euro" purple boxers. Dance parties in these boxers of course later commenced.