Day 5

So this was my first and sadly my only day of shopping in Italy.  My cousin Magda took me a local Italian mall and we hit up some of her favorite stores and I got some cute stuff!  Including a fabulous red jacket, which you might spot in later pics :)  

After lunch we headed back to her house (she lives with her parents and brother).  But she showed me the house that she is going to move into with her boyfriend/fiance and her brother.  It's an interesting set up because, it's like a mini apartment building and she gets the second floor apartment, her brother gets the first floor, and then they have two separate family rooms that are on the ground floor (almost like two studios that act as additional family rooms to entertain guests).  It's super hard to describe. 

However, the fun part of the day came when we were hanging out waiting for Magda's boyfriend to get off work and the neighbors started to burn the grass, and next thing you know, my chest is extremely tight and I have inspiratory and expiratory wheezes.  Yea, I had an asthma attack in Italy; yay me.  So Ivan (Magda's boyfriend) arrived and we had to detour back to my house so I could take my meds.  Luckily Albuterol really is the best drug ever and worked instantly and we went on our merry way!

Where did we go you ask?  First we headed into La Spezia and did a little bit more shopping because Magda wanted to find some tennis shoes.  She was specifically looking for the brand that Uma Therman wears in Kill Bill (never saw it, so I had no idea).  Then we headed over to Portovenere...

   

I know, gorgeous right?! Wait, it gets better!

So the coolest part about this city is that it was built with the buildings touching each other in order to help provide a defense against pirates.  Real pirates!  Ivan told me this and I thought he was joking, but he was serious.  So the houses form a wall that is connected / was connected to two parallel stone walls, which then connected to the castle on the top of the hill.  

    

We took a walk down the end of the pier and there is a grotto that you can enter and this was the view...

    

And of course, like with every other town, village, or city in Italy, there was a church to visit.  This one just happened to have been set up for a wedding and it was just beautiful.  We of course ended with a little photo shoot of the three of us.

     

One photo my favorite way...

Then we had someone else take it...

This is the view atop of the church...