Well, after several plane, train, and car rides, here we are in Santa Margherita! It is beautiful here. We are at the Grand Hotel Miramare for a 5 night stay with Lis’ dad and stepmom, with whom we had lunch today, and with whom we will walk in to town for dinner in about an hour.

Lis is working on some blog posts cataloging some of our transit misadventures, and I don’t have it in me after all of our traveling to do much but post this picture. I will say that one of my favorite things so far, is that we were able to converse a bit with the driver who brought us from the Genoa airport, and who spoke minimal English. This, because we’ve been diligently practicing our Italian, via the Pimsleur CD’s we checked out from the library, and our Duolingo Android app. So Lis was able to thank him for waiting for us (we needed to stop to get Euros), and he said something to the effect of “Oh, at the airport you always have to wait,” and I understood him! I couldn’t really say anything but “Ah, si” in response, but I understood. Later, when the traffic was heavy, I said “molte macchine” (many cars), and he said, “Si, multe, multe” and then talked about how bad the traffic is, especially on the weekends. He interspersed this with the occasional English word, so I was able to follow most of it, I think. Very cool.

Addendum: We just walked in to town (not for dinner, as said above, as dinner won’t be until 7:30pm, now that we’re in Europe), and conducted a transaction in a hardware store, where I asked “How much” in Italian, and, again, understood the answer! So exciting. But, the item I purchased, duct tape, wasn’t duct tape at all, which I didn’t know because I couldn’t read the Italian on the packaging. So, can’t win ’em all, I guess.

(The duct tape is to fix a tear in my AyeGear 23 pocket travel vest, which I still love with all my heart despite the great rent in the back panel)

Addendum #2: Some pics