A Lady in London

Before starting at Brown I spent a semester learning French at a language school in Nice. The night before I left, my family went for dinner at an Italian trattoria where the owner came by to say hello.

Upon hearing that I was traveling to Nice the next morning, our Italian-born friend told me that the one place I absolutely could not miss visiting was Cinque Terre. Young and foolish, I smiled politely and made a mental note to look into it. I never did.

Two months later my language school organized a weekend trip to Pisa to see the tower of leaning fame. Having spent the past 11 weekends traveling all over Europe, I opted to stay in Nice for the weekend instead. I always had a little thorn of regret about it.

This weekend I traveled to Italy to atone for my past sins. I spent just over 2 days in Pisa and the 5 Lands, and as such I feel that it is only appropriate to share my experience in numbers. Here goes…

1: Number of famous leaning towers I saw

2: Number of good friends that joined my boyfriend and I on our trip

2: Number of times I stopped for gelato on day one

3: Number of times I stopped for gelato on day two

1: Number of times I stopped for gelato on day three (this unimpressive figure was improved upon by my consumption of an amazing tiramisu’ for dessert)

1: Number of whole crabs I consumed for dinner

3: Number of home made pasta-dishes I ate

5: Number of focaccia sandwiches I consumed

2: Number of beautiful coastal towns I stayed in

5: Number of towns I hiked to and from

8: Number of trail segments I hiked between towns

100,000: Number of amazing views I saw along the trails

90: Degrees (F) it was outside every day

30: SPF I slathered all over my pasty-pale London skin 40 times a day

1,000: Number of times I said “these buildings all remind me of Nice”

1,000,000: Number of times I want to travel to Cinque Terre again