martinis in rimini

it all started sunday morning. a sunday morning in italy to be more specific. we are packed and ready with our bare minimum, our small bags and ready to accept whatever adventures await us after a sleepless night of anticipation. of course, we get to the bus station, have our english-italian dictionary out to figure out the schedule, and of course, being it sunday in italy, there are no buses running from colorno to parma. we have to get there to catch our train, but a taxi would cost 30 euro.  so arina, the brave soul, spots a car at a red light thinking that a man and a wife on a sunday morning must be harmless and as they roll down the window, she asks them if they are going to parma. yes, they are going to parma, but after they drop off the SON (not wife) to rugby practice. oops. the man was very chatty and told us about his job as a pathologist, vetinarian, fish inspector and a meat inspector for slaughter houses - very appropriate for after our cured meat stage. easily enough, in no time we are in parma, on the train, heading down the eastern coast of italy to rimini.

i'm pretty sure neither arina nor i will be back in rimini any time in the future. the sun was shining, the sea view was refreshing and the sand in between our toes felt nice. however, the place was packed with tourists (mostly italian) and all along the beach coast were huge ugly hotels. the road along the water was lined with barely moving cars and the boardwalk was swarmed. crammed. we wondered away from the masses and found the old city which was adorable - pastel coloured houses with picturesque paintings on the walls - i think depicting the jobs of the people that lived there...or something. our jammin' party hostel wasn't quite so jammin' in the off season at the end of march - just us, 2 other guys and a girl who also was in our room with us. perfect for us though because we were up early in the morning, grabbed a couple extra fruits from the free breakfast (roughin' it) and back on the train.

oh, and we never had martini's in rimini. just some really bad table red wine at dinner. pic-nic.