cinque terre

sitting in a little internet point overlooking....the mediterranean!!  si, we made it to the ocean, walking along the absolutely gorgeous cliffs and little trails through the cinque terre, five beautiful little towns all connected by little walkways along the northern italian coast, colorful buildings, little winding streets, and so very quiet for this time of year!  we arrived yesterday via train and walked out on to the sand....apparently all the little markets take a 5 hour siesta in the afternoon from noon to five, so we were quite hungry for a while!  but the place is so beautiful, we walked from monterosso to vernazza, 3km of thousands of stone steps and little terraced vineyards and lemon and orange trees and olive trees....sooooo beautiful and like a little road to hana (maui) for walking...last night we ate at a little restaurant and drank some wine that was produced on the very slopes we walked upon....the towns are all so sweet.  it's nice to be here in a non tourist season.....we stayed in riomaggiore last night, and will walk through the trails today through manarola, corniglia, back to vernazza, and then take a train back into cecina where we will be at nicola's until thursday.  it has been so wonderful at nicola's, really you can't imagine the view, the rolling tuscany hills and all the olive trees we know so intimately now (we are becoming quite good pruners, hours of practice now!) and we eat so much olive oil there, produced in last year's harvest.  the three golden retrievers (blue, alba and penny who is pregnant and very emotional) follow us down to the trees every day and hang out while we prune, blue always wanting us to through sticks, pinecones and sometimes rocks!  there are two little kitties, stella and simba, who love human food and are so cute as well.  we are studying italian and are picking up more words every day, we bought a 'learn italian in 10 weeks' book and are going to continue studying it in thailand!  we are going to florence on thursday, our friend jennie who was WWOOFing with us at nicola's told us of a few great places (ie. restaurants) to hit up in florence/firenze....then we are stopping in abruzzo national park for a night and off to rome for a couple of days before we fly to thailand on the 11th (with a stopover in cairo, egypt for 4 hours, i can say i've been to africa [sortof])....

  yesterday we said good by to simona, the other wwoofer we have been living with, she is so wonderful, she's from brazil and led ashtanga yoga with us for a few days, the three of us moving together in sun salutation and breathing together and stretching together...she inspired me a lot about eating fresh brazilian fruits and cooked a wonderful coconut milk rice pudding!  lots of wisdom, i felt like i got a new little teaching every day that i would write down in my book to share with others and remember for later.  carson and i finished our first page a day book a few days ago, it is so beautiful!!! we look forward to sharing it with everyone!  hopefully we can find a way to post more pictures soon, especially the ones from the cinque terre it is such a beautiful place!!!  google image search for pictures of it, absolutely breathtaking!

much love to everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!