Mike Jutan's World: My birthday in Cinque Terre

It was a fantastic idea to have "the birthdays" in Cinque Terre. My birthday is May 28th and Ans's birthday is May 29th, so it worked out super well that we were traveling together at the time!! We started off the day by taking a big hike up to the Madonna de Monterrosso cathedral at the top of one of the walking paths starting in Riomaggiore. This was really cool because it was a special weekend called the Pentacost, and they had opened the church at the top of the hill with all this gold that was donated by people to the church. Very cool!! There was aparantely some kind of feast but when we got there I just got Apple Pie and Ans got a sandwich.

After the nice hike we went down another path and got some beautiful views of the ocean!! It was sooooooooo cool. We ran into some awesome people on the way back down to Riomaggiore who shared our love for the ocean and the awesomeness of Cinque Terre!!

We then checked out the ocean, just watching the crazy waves crash against the rocks for hours. It was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO coooooooooooool!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Good times. After that we went to a super nice restaurant and I got Salmon Pasta and then I ordered Fish... but when you order fish in Cinque Terre, they bring you an ENTIRE FISH!! This was hilarious and nuts. I think I looked sufficiently nervous, so an old man there came to de-bone the fish for me and sung italian songs while he de-boned the fish. Amazing!! For dessert we got Tiramisu and Tartuffo and we also got Lemoncello, an italian lemon liquer. Sweeeeeeeeeet!!

Then we went for a walk and ran into Bex (Rebecca) from Waterloo, a friend of mine who I did frosh leading with?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!! I had NO idea she was traveling (let alone in Riomaggiore) so that was nuts. We sat with Bex and her friends and chatted for a while and then went to bed, getting a good sleep before our huge trek along the 5 Villages the next day for Ans's birthday.