Allison's Wonderland

04-05-2012

I knew it was going to be a good weekend when I saw Wisteria growing from a stone wall on my way to the train station. The purple flower looked as if it exploded all over the wall and it was absolutely breathtaking! If you don’t know what Wisteria is, you should Google it, but I’m sure you’ll see plenty of Wisteria just in this post alone in order to get your fill and realize what exactly Wisteria is.

Let me give you the background of my obsession with Wisteria. One year ago in the spring of 2011, I saw this play called “Enchanted April” my Alma Mater put on. Me and my friends had a girl’s night out and went and saw it. The play was about these two British women who had kind of lost the flavor of life being in their mundane routine in England. So they decide to rent a house in Italy. Well to make a long story short their time spent in Italy in all the “Wisteria & Sunshine” changed their lives. The set was decked out with flowers and Wisteria everywhere! They kept repeating the line over and over about “Wisteria and Sunshine”. We girls just had a good time at the show and the play was simply lovely. So, Wisteria has a feel good place in my heart. I never really realized the truth of that play till I came to Italy and was able to experience the enormous amounts of Wisteria and sunshine for myself.

My amazing Wisteria filled weekend did not start off so well. Unfortunately, I missed my train to Savona due to several factors. Number one being, we left the house a little late. Number two stupid cars don’t know how to drive, and number three the man in front of me in the ticket line was sitting there chatting up a storm to little miss Trenitalia employee while his daughter kept twirling the little turn table that you put your money in to pay. I finally was like “PERMESSO!! EXCUSATAMI!” (pushed annoying man and daughter out of the way. I’m terrible I know). I bought my ticket and ran towards the tracks, just in time to wave goodbye to my train. Now I had to wait an extra hour at the Mondovi Train station. The Mondovi Train station is ick. Just saying. Anyway, it just put me an hour later to meet up with my pal Jess in Sestri Levante.

We had a splendid afternoon filled with eating, eating, and more eating. Whenever I go to the Italian Riviera I have to get my fill of three things. Focaccia is the highest on the list. I don’t care what is on it, I just want Focaccia. Second is my specialty coffee. If you read my previous posts you understand my obsession with espresso, Nutella, and panna (Pah-nay; cream) all rolled into one splendiferous drink. Lastly is gelato. I’m not nuts about ice cream at all; even gelato for that matter, but something about seeing sand, palm trees, and the Mediterranean just gives me a HUGE hankering for it. We ate, walked a little bit. Ate and walked a little bit more. Last time I was in Sestri we hiked this whole super long trail that took us about 2 hours. This time we just went up to this Hotel that was pretty much forbidden for us to be there, but we tried to act like we were Hotel guests. I was in Adidas pants and a tank top and Jess was reppin Jeans and a tank. We didn’t look overly wealthy, or remotely the type of patrons that would frequent this type of Hotel. We just tried to blend. Our excuse for if anyone asked us why we were there, was Jess was getting married and was scoping out wedding venues. Pretty clever I must say. :) Yep I came up with that one.

We walked around and took in the sights, which were beautiful. Wisteria was everywhere and I kept snapping away with my camera. I think Jess thought I was nuts. Oh well. After our hike to the top of the little hilly thing we headed for the port. We found ourselves some perfect rocks and laid out. Perfection! Well it was perfection until my bladder started screaming at me. Then I had to find a hole in the rock and pop a squat. It was difficult because there wasn’t much privacy and beyond the rocks was a huge wall where people were standing and taking pictures. Speaking of taking pictures, Jess was nice enough to snap one of me in mid pee. I’m sure you wanted to know that, but I had to say. After our little nap sunning ourselves we headed to Aperitivo. We walked around for about 15 minutes trying to find the perfect place. We had ourselves some prime people watching. I don’t know what it is about Italians, maybe it’s the romance of the Mediterranean Sea, but these people love to make out everywhere. We saw about 4 today. While we’re sitting there, just enjoying our food and drinks these people stop in the middle of the road and just start going at it. Ahh…Love. :) Anyway, it was a perfect day filled with Wisteria, Food, hiking, food, sea, and food. Wisteria and Sunshine + Food = Perfection. :)