Sun, sun, sun GET OUTTA MY FACE

Since Keegan is in school and Ben seems to have fallen off the face of the Earth and won't even answer me on Facebook whether he got a new passport or not, I might as well continue the trend of being the only one to post anything. I am camping tonight in a town called Laigueglia (Lie-goo-liya). If you're following along on a map, you might be thinking, "Whoa. He's done more than 450 km in 3 days. What a champion." Or maybe not. Maybe you're harder to impress than that, or you just have no idea how to measure distances with a system that makes sense, and will only understand how far I've gone if I use the glue-sniffing, crack-smoking unit of measurement known as miles. Okay, I'll oblige. 450 km is 270 miles (1.6 km in a mile, 0.6 miles in a km). Anyway, the reason you may or may not be thinking that I'm awesome is mostly that I am, but partly because I took a train part of the way. I didn't want to, but it was kind of necessary. Well, not necessary, but... Maybe I should just tell the whole story.
I rode from Florence to Pisa (as expected, my plan didn't quite pan out and I ended up going through Pisa again instead of north of it) the first day. This was no great feat, and I wanted to ride farther, except I went straight through Pisa and kept following the river another 10 km or so to the ocean, thinking I would turn north and ride along the coast. However, I found out once I got to the coast that there is a natural reserve with no roads going through it north of the river mouth, so I was forced to ride back to Pisa and spend the night there. The campsite was way overpriced, but I was so tired (backtracking takes it out of you way more than making progress, for some reason) that I just sucked it up and stayed there. It was a nice place at least; sweet showers, a pool, a market where I got breakfast, and live entertainment. Next day I rode north on the SS1, a road that bicycles are allowed on, but is lacking in any concessions to them other than a foot-wide shoulder (yes, I realize I'm being inconsistent by calling miles retarded and then using feet, but 1 foot sounds better than 0.3 meters). I made excellent progress for 60 km or so until I got to Cinque Terre National Park. Literally meaning "five lands", Cinque Terre is the area around 5 small towns that are located, as so eloquently described by Meghan and Shannon, in the "armpit of Italy". They are built on the sides of the steep coastal hills and canyons, and it's a really beautiful place. I was looking forward to a pretty, if hilly, ride through the park, but I quickly found out that the road didn't go through to the end of the park because it was washed out by a flood. I really didn't want to ride back the 25 km or so to the intersection with a different road that went north, so after some asking around I discovered that there was a train that goes through the park. I feel terrible for the people that had to build it (it's basically one giant tunnel except for the stations), but I'm glad they did. After not buying a ticket (mine was covered by my Eurail pass, and I didn't need to pay any extra for the bike), I took an hour-long train ride through the park and a bit past, almost to Genova. I spent the night in a very well-priced campground with great facilities, free internet, beach access...oh, and a 2 km ride up a veritable cliff face to get to it. Oh well, it was a fun ride down in the morning. After said roller-coaster ride back down to the main road, I continued north, through Genova, and around the curve of the bay so I was once again heading south. And here I am. Now, in defense of my claim that I'm awesome; I rode just as far today by bike alone as I went yesterday by train and bike: just over 150 km.
Now all that riding makes for a serious appetite. I thought I ate a lot normally, but biking all day results in about twice as much. For instance, today I ate 5 bowls of müesli (a German cereal that's like granola but without whatever stickiness holds the clusters together) mixed with hazelnuts and a peach for breakfast, 6 sandwiches throughout the day, and a Costco-sized pizza for dinner. And now I'm hungry again.
And now for something completely different.
Things that I've seen in the last couple days that I never have before:
-a nun on a Vespa
-a firefly
-a Vatican priest on a road bike, his black robes billowing magnificently behind him
-a Dutch guy with an epic backpack tan
And I guess everything else, too.