Genova, Italy - First day: Sunday

Woke up early this morning and had breakfast with my co-worker Shaila. She's been here a week already and is already sick of cheese and bread and pizza. But since I hadn't had dinner, I over-ate, as always...

At the hotel lobby, we tried to find out where we can go to do some sight-seeing. People had warned me about how the Italians don't really speak English. So so true!!! Finally one guy at the reception area, Enrico, who happenned to have gone to school in San Francisco gave us some good directions and good advice.

So with map in hand, Shaila and I ventured out. It was wet out, but nothing bad... just a bit sprinkly. We took the bus to Piazza Aquaverde and from there on we continued walking along Via Alpini D'Italia, the port with all the boats and street vendors.

We ventured more inland and got to see some lovely buildings and fountains...

I believe this is at Piazza De Ferrari...

My first meal outside of the hotel was at a Turkish kebab place, of all places, where both Shaila and I had the falafel wraps, although the meat looked really good! It started raining much heavier to the point where Shaila bought an umbrella and me in my refusal to use an umbrella 90% of the time (makes me feel clustrophobic) got soaked and my converses had so much water in them that I may as well have had walked bare-feet... and I would have, if it wasn't for all the trash and other unmentionable things on the roads...

All in all, we walked for about 5 hours... By the time we got back to the hotel, we were completely soaked and really tired. It was an adventure to try to ask for directions... After a while I would stop asking people if they spoke English, and just mention the name of the place we were trying to get to, and try to pick up a word here and there to get what they were saying. We're so lucky that Italians speak with their hands... Makes understanding directions so much easier.