RSM

After my post on Friday, the rain lightened up long enough for us to decide to head out and explore the historic city center of Rimini. About 10 steps from the hostel towards the bus stop, the rain picked up again, but we refused to go back (even though the hostel wasn't a bad place at all to be stuck...warm, brightly painted, good music, free books in English, pillows on the floor... you know, pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a place called "Sunflower Beach Backpacker's Hostel"). The picture of Elizabeth and I with our umbrellas is from our rainy wait for the bus.

We got off the bus near the river and walked along the river towards the Tiberian Bridge (one of the 4 main historical attractions according to the map the hostel gave us). Next we walked towards a castle on the north side of town, going literally entirely around the castle to try and find the entrance. Then we headed towards the Augustan Arch on the opposite edge of town, followed by the oldest church in the city. The map was apparently blown up quite a bit because it didn't take as long as we expected to see the sights, so we decided to try and find some dinner. We walked for almost an hour up and down practically every street in Rimini trying to find something other than a cafe (we wanted more than a sandwich). We found great lasagna and gnocchi at a no-name place and walked back towards the bus to head back to the hostel. At the hostel, we checked our email, read for maybe 30 minutes, and fell asleep by 9:30 because we were so cold and tired (from being up since 5:30am, mostly).

Saturday we got up in time to take advantage of the free breakfast at the hostel, checked out, and headed to the train station where we could get a bus to San Marino. On the #11 bus from the hostel to the train station, it was wall to wall bodies...at one point, this woman set her gigantic suitcase on my foot, then went to change the position of her grip on the bar and hit me square on the face. She found it hilarious, I managed to smile at her...needless to say, I was relieved when we made it to the station with no further injuries. We got to the station just in time for a 9:45 bus and hopped on, ending up in the Republic of San Marino promptly at 10:30. For a while, the 3 of us poked around San Marino, buying postcards and taking pictures. Then we decided to walked from the city center to the 3 separate towers and back again. By then, all of us were starving, so we hunted down the least expensive, least touristy restaurant we could find, and were rewarded with a pretty decent restaurant with a fabulous view. The girls got gelato after lunch, but I was too full from my gigantic spaghetti al ragu (fear not, I got some on the way home from the train station in Venice).

We ended up taking an early, regional train from Rimini back to Venice by way of Bologna. It was nice to get back to Venice by 8ish, but we did have some intense train experiences--the first wasn't too bad, but the second was running 15 minutes late, got moved from one platform to another (and they were not exactly close together), and was PACKED (we were lucky to get seats, even if they were cramped and kind of stinky). It's weird to be in the house with just a few people (last night it was just David, McKinley, Elizabeth, Rhianna, Laura, and I), but nice. I made dinner last night, then did laundry and unloaded new groceries today in peace and with plenty of space. Today I've just kind of bummed around because it's cool and drizzly here... a perfect excuse to stay in the house and watch The Notebook and cross a few things of the law school applying to-do list.

(The other 2 pictures are a view from the heights of San Marino and a shot of the 2nd Tower in San Marino).