Monday-Travel Day

And so begins our vacation. Sunday we picked Katie up at the airport at 7:40 a.m. (at one point, while we were waiting, I catch Jill swinging her hair singing, "I whip my hair back and forth..." and I just stared at her and she said, "What? It's early and I'm bored!").

We had a little breakfast in Sol...

We packed and re-packed and weighed our bags and re-packed to organize everything just-so because Ryanair is VERY particular about weight limits.

Then we slept for about 5 minutes and were out the door at 3:45 a.m. to catch our 6am flight. Here are the girls looking really tough about their suitcases outside Madrid Barajas Terminal... not the one we wanted. (Except Jill perhaps just looks a little sick)

We got to Milan something-or-another small airport and took a bus shuttle to the train station, where we found a corner and shuffled stuff around to fit bags into bags.

Katie made packets for each place with all our tickets and travel/hotel information. They were very helpful. :)

We ate an interesting panini and then hopped on the train which took us to...

Monterosso!

We took the shuttle up the mounain to our beautiful hotel. After we checked in, Jill's version of events goes something like this:
"Katie and Ashley shoved me in the 'lift' with the luggage and the lady who didn't speak English. Did I mention I have a huge fear of elevators and this one I'm pretty sure wasn't electric...some gnome or troll was in the basement using a pulley system. Claustrophobia doesn't even begin to describe it. So that was fun."

Seems a bit melodramatic to me... :) BUT then we got in our room to discover we had a balcony with an amazing view!!

Then we had a lovely dinner by the sea.

and peaked around the cute little town of Monterosso.