Reconnected.

All right, so if you missed it, I just did one massive post for the last several days in Cinque Terre a second ago, so go read the post before this first.
I was originally going to leave Cinque Terre rather early this morning, as there was a train direct to Pisa a little before 9 am. I ended up putting it off though, and was hoping to be able to stash my bag in the check-in room so I could go on a hike with Jillian and Andrew. Of course, this doesn't work out, and all I can think is that if I went straight to Pisa, I'd probably end up not doing anything constructive with my day. So I decided last minute, with all my luggage strapped to my back, to go to Montresso and do the hike to the sanctuary there at the point. It didn't look too bad on the map after all.
When we arrived, the waves were HUGE. Jillian and Andrew couldn't restrain themselves from taking an impromptu swim, even though the water was rather cold. I hung back with a couple I had just met, visiting from San Francisco, while we watched those "Crazy Canadians." I decided I'd rather drink coffee than swim, a choice I do not regret. It was a fabulous cappuccino, very cheap, and it was wonderfully warm in the sunshine.
Eventually everyone had dried off again, and we headed for our hike. I wish I had counted how many stairs we climbed. It was steep. Straight up the hill. And the stairs were huge old stone ones at best, and streaks of broken rock at worst. But I made it up. I kept my pack on for most of the climb too. But Jillian is afraid of heights and didn't want to climb all the way, so I took advantage and left my bags with her. Still, I was proud, because I would not have been able to carry my bag that far on level ground in September, and now I went straight up the hillside.
The view was incredible once we got there. There was the remains of an old chapel, and beyond that a building that was set up so you could climb directly onto roof to get the most incredible view. You could see every town of the Cinque Terre from there. We even off trailed it a little bit down the point to get more shots, and once we were out from the hillside we could see all the mountains to the north. It was really just incredible.
Once we got back down, it was of course, siesta time. So we just climbed on the train to La Spezia. We enjoyed a fabulous lunch there and checked out the downtown area of the town. We also had some gelato(technically before lunch), though the gal serving us left much to be desired. Maybe she was just having a bad day though.
While we were buying our train tickets after this, they were going to Venice through Florence, so we were booking the same train, we saw a girl collapse outside the window. Turns out Andrew has some lifeguard and paramedics training, and he went running outside to help out. Probably a good thing because the cops there had no idea what to do, and the girls boyfriend apparently kept acting like she was playing a bad joke on him. It was pretty impressive to watch though.
Of course we got the train with problems too. Took two and a half hours to get to Pisa, as it kept stopping to fix whatever was going on. That is almost an hour late, and Jillian and Andrew only had an half hour to catch their next train, the last to Venice tonight. We were all hoping that the other train is running late too, and that they make the connection okay, but I'm not sure they were going to. I gave them some places I had been looking at for hostels in Firenze just to be safe, and gave them the briefing of Florence safety tips just to make sure they were aware. Hopefully they make it okay, though I'm sure whatever happens it will end up an adventure and a story for them to tell when they get home.
Now I'm here in Pisa again. I'll stay all day tomorrow, and then I head off to Florence myself. I'm very excited to get there, and even more so to take a day trip to Orvieto. I hope everyone had great Thanksgivings while I was out of touch, and I'll try and get pictures posted soon!