Foni in San Salvatore

Hello there.

A bit of a long day today; although, maybe not. I woke up at 7:30am, then got back in bed until about 9:30am, when I jumped out of bed and dashed up the hill to meet with my San Salvatore hike group. Only to go back down the hill on the way to San Salvatore. We walked to the Fonicular (sp?), which is at the bottom of the mountain and then proceeded to hike up it. It took us about an hour and a half or two hours. It was a bit of steep hike, but enjoyable; I just wish there hadn't been so many stairs. Most of them were enormous steps for my short little legs... But it was all right, and it was breathtaking once we got to the top. There was a little church and a museum and a grotto at the top. You can also get to the top by taking the foni (just in case you should ever happen to visit and don't feel up to the hike). About seventeen of us took the foni down the mountain which was fun. Figured that we'd never been on one before, and this ride was on the school (okay, technically our parents), so we might as well take it.

After we got back down, Alyssa, Mike and I decided to go into downtown to do some people watching and some grocery shopping. We ended up spending about three hours down there, I think. We did lots of window shopping and tried to find our way around (I'm getting much better). We stopped and all got gelato (chocolate for me, of course; it was quite delicious). We scouted out a street corner and sat there and ate our gelato while listening to some crazy Italian covering REM on the opposite street corner. Then we went into Manor (sort of an enormous grocery/department store place). Mike (he's from Bainbridge by the way) needed to get some soccer cleats and we couldn't find them anywhere, but I whipped out my mad Spanish skills and got us pointed in the right direction. I was so proud of myself. Actually it made me feel a lot better, knowing that I'd be able to communicate in a pinch. After that Alyssa and I went down the basement grocery store and did some basics shopping. I bought laundry detergent, dish soap, a sponge, some sort of those cloth things that Mom loves, all-purpose cleaner stuff, salt, noodles, butter, milk, eggs; basics, pretty much. I should've bought flour! I know I forgot something. Oh well, my backpack was heavy enough as it was. I made dinner for Alyssa and Mike in my apartment. We had some sort of meat-filled tortellini with a really excellent spicy tomato sauce. It was like $13 for enough of that for us to have thirds; a way better deal, in my opinion, then going out, even to the Grotto at school (it's $12 for dinner there, per person). Then we had Kinder bars for dessert. It was good. I have to go do dishes now...

I'm quite exhausted at this point in the day. We're going to Valle Verazca (sp?) tomorrow; we leave here at 9:30am. Then there's a BBQ. I start classes on Monday... how exciting. Anyway, things are going well. I'll send pictures from San Salvatore soon; it was gorgeous! My bedroom is much cozier now that I have my down comforter too; I was very excited to sleep last night. I'm trying to think if there's anything that I'm forgetting... but I'm pretty sure that was my whole day.

Smile! :-)