San Remo and Taggio

. The view from my bungalow!

I love Italy!  This morning I woke up in my little nook in Milan, got ready, had some espressos with my hosts and then said goodbye and headed to the Centrale di Milano (central train station in Milan).  I had prearranged to meet up with some other tutors there.  It was nice to meet them all, and then we boarded the train for the trip to San Remo.  Our train was divided into compartments with six seats each and glass doors for each compartment. Our seats were assigned, and I was lucky because another tutor for my program was in my compartment.  After three hours of a lovely ride on the Italian coast, we arrived.

Upon arriving, we were met at the station by a representative from the the program, given a bus ticket, and directed outside.  We were crossing the street to the bus when we saw all of these police scooters headed towards us, lights on and sirens blazing, and some guy literally hanging out of the window of a car with a big sign.  We quickly got out of the way.  Right behind the scooters and car was a giant herd of cyclists!  Just like the Tour de France!  Following the pack of cyclists were some scooters with spare bike wheels attached, just like I've seen in the races that Chris has made me watch.

When we got to our home for the training, we were all amazed.  It's a simple resort right on the beach, slightly outside of San Remo. My room isn't a room at all.  It's kind of like a little apartment with five small beds, a bathroom, and a kitchen.  My roommates are an American living in Greece, and American living in England, a Canadian, and a Scot.  We have a balcony that faces out to the ocean with amazing views.  It's so beautiful here!  The water is so blue and the scenery is just fabulous.  After we got settled and discovered that there isn't any wifi here, another girl and I walked into the nearby village of Taggio and found a bar that had free wifi.  The EuroCup is going on here and people are SUPER excited about it.  Everyone in the bar was getting ready for the Italy-Spain game.

After orientation and dinner (pasta, salad, quiche, and an apple), a few of the other girls and I walked along the beach back to Taggio and shared a 1L carafe of sparkling white wine on the patio of a restaurant.  Wine can be purchased for so cheap here....cheaper than soda sometimes!  Now I'm back at my bungalow, and the official training starts tomorrow and runs through Friday.  We start at 8am wit breakfast, 9am until 4:30 training (with a break for lunch), and then the rest of ours is free to do what we want.  I think I'll go to the beach.  :)