Goodbye Jorryt & Lilian

Thursday afternoon, Jorryt and Lilian arrived. They were lucky to finally make it to Italy because a dense fog around the Netherlands had diverted many planes. But finally, with a little bit of a delay, they did make it to Milan.
After showing the house and a little walk, we went for an Aperitivo in a bar nearby.

The next morning, I made another attempt at getting a real cooker. We have been using a bloody electric cooker for 4 months now and the landlord continually promises that the gas-cooker will be installed "next week". Yet anoter attempt, this time at the local smith was unsuccessful. After this little struggle, I took Jorryt and Lilian to University where we had lunch. Afterwards, they went to visit the Duomo and the city center, where Jorryt shot some gorgeous photos (which I might post some other day...). At night, while waiting for the smith to arrive, as he finally did promise to come, we had some little drinks and considered whether to go out or not. There were a few party offers, but the public transport strike made it impossible to go anywhere. Additionally, the smith didnt arrive until 21.30 (approximately 18.00, right?). Of course, there was a piece missing, so we still do NOT have a normal cooker...
Finally a nice pizza was all we had that night. Probably that was a good idea, as we were going on a trip for the weekend. We got up early and went to Central Station to pick up our rental car. A lovely Fiat Punto that served us very well for the weekend... Thank god Jorryt didnt mind driving, because I really dont like doing it! I am much better at navigating, anyway. I managed to get us to Pisa, where we visited another thing on The List: the Leaning Tower!
 
 

After a lovely stroll through Pisa, which is actually an enjoyable town, we drove to Lucca, a famous and gorgeous old city. Unfortunately, it was already dark before we got there, so there are little photos available of the lovely old town centre.
 

That night, we made a bit of a night of it. Drank quite a few drinks and had some reasonable food. It was a very enjoyable affair, all in all. We were staying in a very nice guesthouse, just outside the old city centre, where we had a gorgeous veranda to sit on at night, enjoying our nightcap before going to bed...
Sunday, we were going to go to Cinque Terre. Unfortunately the weather looked quite horrific. A drizzly rain, very grey and miserable. However, we did not let that stop us and drove to Cinque Terre anyway.
Driving through the last tunnel was quite amazing, as it suddenly cleared up completely when arriving at the coastal side of the mountains. So we actually had a beautiful day in the Cinque Terre, with 20-something degrees and nicely sunny most of the time... We managed to do 3 of the 5 Terre during this day and Jorryt did a very good job in navigating us down the slopes of the Ligurian coast (once again, I was very happy not to be the one driving!!!)
 
 
 
After enjoying these stunning villages (probably I will post more photos in the future. I just cannot really be bothered right now), we drove back to Milan, where we arrived at about 19.30. 650 kilometers and a lot of fun!!!

This morning, it was an early wake-up call, because I joined Jorryt and Lilian to drive to Central Station, where I returned the car to the rental company. Honestly, I was quite relieved to be rid of it, because it is quite a responsibility...
After saying goodbye to Jorryt and Lilian, I returned to University to be busy there with many things (I have a temporary job as a Research Assistant!!! Just a few hours of preparatory work for a project to see if it is feasible. But it means income, so that is always great!). Unfortunately, I could not stay late because the darn smith was supposed to return tonite (somewhere around 18.00), but he has not. So still no cooker......... :-((((

Ciao,
OJ