I am much better rested now, thanks to sleeping in a bed for the last two nights as opposed to a bus that stops every hour and turns all the lights on. Amazing, eh? We spent about 3 hours in Milan and that was perfect, we saw the Duomo, walked around a bit and mostly sat in the piazza, where I read and Kara curled up and slept. Genova has been a great experience. The people here are amazingly helpful and eager to strike up conversations with foreigners that speak broken Italian, and most know English as well. For example, while walking into the center of town yesterday we passed a 60 something year old woman sitting on her wall with her cat and a bowl of food. I said bongiorno, and she replied with, 'I'm just waiting for him to eat'. So we stopped and chatted for 5 minutes in a mix of english and italian and she gave us recommendations on where to swim. Genova, unlike Paris, is build on one big hill rising up from the port. Stairs run up and up and up the hill, making a much more direct route into the city that the narrow roads that form winding, narrow switchbacks. The hostel, which is the only hostel here, is at the very top of the hill, a 20 minute walk down but a very long sweaty walk up, so we take the bus up. But the reward for that is a stunning view of the city. We have walked around quite a bit, eating pizza, pasta, gelato and vino. Yesterday we took the bus out to the edge of the city and went swimming in the sea. the water was warm and the beach was packed with people, all of whom seemed dead set on getting as tan as possible with no regard to the possibility of skin cancer. It was wonderful. Now, we are getting ready to head to the train station to get on the bus for the cinque terre. We are staying slightly out of the area, in La Spezia, because when I thought I booked us a room in a hostel almost a week ago, the email response 'room is fully booked' I read that as we were set and I had booked the room. But no, when I opened it again it was abundantly clear that it meant there are no available rooms. All I can say is that I was tired...oops. So Kara has taken over hostel bookings now, she is very good at it, very organized. Really so much better at it than I am it is pretty amazing. The other great move I pulled was buying our tickets online from Milan to Genova. Everything was great except for the fact that I booked them for 26/8/12 not 26/7/12, so they were perfect for the 26th next month, but for this month we had to buy tickets on the train at double the price. Ouch. Anyways, live and learn! Double check your tickets and your reservations!!