DAY 65: Pink Elephants

In the spirit of Saint Patrick’s Day, I’ve realized my luck is based on the fact that, a best friend is like a four leaf clover: hard to find and lucky to have… and here I am with two! No time for green eggs and ham this morning, we had an apartment to tidy and train to catch… cappuccinos, sandos and M&M’s sufficed for a meal before we boarded the wagon to Pisa to change connections to La Spezia which finally dropped us in Manarola, Cinque Terre. After spending the end of the ride in dark tunnels, light broke through the window and literally took our breath away when we looked out over the Mediterranean… we were like 5 years old seeing Mickey’s ears in the distance on the drive to Disneyland. I felt like I was having an epiphany… until we were sucked back into a graffiti filled dungeon. The deafening brakes squealed to a stop in our magical little home for the rest of the week… we had to walk through a neon green tunnel that was straight out of that nightmare when you are swimming through “Slimer The Ghost’s” birth canal: trippy.

Once we finally reached the town, a mighty steep hill to climb lay before us… onward and upward with our nylon pets who were hitching piggyback rides. 10 sweaty minutes later we arrived at our hostel to learn its “hours of operation”… it was now 1:45 and they didn’t open until 4 p.m. Good thing Billy’s down the street was open! We walked in and Billy himself told us to come in…

“May we sit on the deck?” we asked...

“Are you from Canada?” he answered…

“Haha, close enough!” we said as we carefully stepped down the steep stairs to a lovely little terrace with a view you’d have to see to believe.

“You are first customers to sit outside this year!” he told us.

It was a sunny 55-60 degrees, so we ordered a bottle of wine, some bread and cheese and put our feet up to enjoy the serenity surrounding us, especially the lack of car and Vespa noises and more importantly, NO TOURISTS. Charming place for its lack of “modern” development… only paths, trains and boats connecting the towns. It was 3 girlfriends, the locals and the vineyards that stair stepped out of the aquamarine water straight up into the bluebird sky… bright orange and pink houses dotted the hillsides. It looked like the Easter Bunny threw up in Lego Land…  being on the water turns my frown upside down- the smell of lemon trees, fresh rosemary and salt water teasing my nostrils makes my world go ‘round.

Ann entertained us with a story about pink elephants… seeing pink elephants is a euphemism for drunk hallucinations. Jack London was the first to use this term in his writings: “"the man whom we all know, stupid, unimaginative, whose brain is bitten numbly by numb maggots; who walks generously with wide-spread, tentative legs, falls frequently in the gutter, and who sees, in the extremity of his ecstasy, blue mice and pink elephants. He is the type that gives rise to the jokes in the funny papers." Anyone who has seen “Fantasia” remembers the dancing elephants that drink champagne and turn pink… better known as DT- Delirium Tremens. Well Annie knew of a lawyer, a banker and an engineer that got loaded at some conference and decided it would be a good idea to drive home. On the way, each of them saw elephants, yet the car remained silent as they well knew what they were experiencing. The next day, the front page of the paper read “Three Elephants Escape Traveling Circus- Wyoming.” Haha, the funny thing is, pink elephants actually DO exist because albino elephants can be pink!

Standing up makes you an honest woman and after 2 bottles of wine in 2 hours, we were honestly buzzed at Bill’s. We walked over to our lovely little hostel behind the church and settled in to our very clean room with a big window looking out over the patio and town. I threw on some jams and we had a dance/try-on-everything-we-brought (which took me 2 seconds) party before heading to Vernazza, the third of five towns that make up the Cinque Terre (1-Riomaggiore, 2-Manarola, 3-Corneglia, 4-Vernazza, 5-Monterosso al Mar). We took good ol’ Rick Steve’s advice and grabbed a cocktail at The Blue Marlin where we met a dude that worked there from California (UC San Jose) who got swept up by one of the Italian beauties and moved to Italy! He and his colleague (may have taken the gold and silver for the day) made us delight in a glass- a concoction I will be introducing upon my return behind the bar in June. Wasn’t overly impressed with the place- looked like something you’d find in South Florida. We walked through the center of town to the quay and found a great resto called Gambero Rosso where a fluffy white dog greeted us as we walked in. We started with their signature antipasto anchovy assortment and some vini bianchi… Rab got pesto trofie, a pasta that looks like the Play Dough worms kids roll their boogers into at daycare. Ann and I split a seafood risotto dish with mussels, clams, shrimp and squid. Everything was fabulous and we ended up sharing, including a panna cotta with chocolate and oranges. The only downside to the evening was being surrounded by fellow Americans- who wants to hear loud, know-it-all New Yorkers in Italy?

We got on the wrong train back to Manarola, which seems impossible considering how close these towns are, but we all know how astounding my sense of direction is! 45 minutes later we made it to our room, curled up under fluffy down comforters and drifted off to sleep with a tantalizing, cool sea breeze coming through the open window. Heaven, oh heaven, is this right here… more from Dreamland tomorrow! Ciao…