A fortuitous message from a fellow Erasmus student alerted me to her nearby presence in Genoa. And I hopped on the train at the earliest opportunity to escape the farm and join her. At the station, I noticed this young French guy who had been at the hostel. He was reading Sartre and munching on bread, prosciutto and mozzarella. I sat next to him on the platform and was reading Marcovaldo, trying to pretend I wasn’t noticing him peering over to see what language I was reading in. He asked me if it was the right platform for the train to Torino and we got talking. He was going to Genoa too and turned out to be a really cool guy. He’s the only gardner in Paris who doesn’t use fossil fuels! He cycles between jobs with a trailer attached to his bicycle.

Anyway, he hadn’t booked anywhere so he ended up coming with Juliane and I to our hostel and hanging out with us both for the whole time. He was really funny, and it worked really well as a three.

Genoa was a really cool, crazy place – a hypnotic amalgamation of cultures, like a building would be half arabesque/half baroque! I loved it, though the city felt a bit empty on a Sunday in August…so I don’t feel I got a great sense of what it would be like to live there…will have to go back!

Then Juliane went to Tuscany to stay with an Italian friend. And Matthieu went North towards the Alps to go camping with friends. I headed back down to Levanto to explore the Cinque Terre/lie on the beach and do nothing but eat yummy focaccia. I was there 2 nights/three days and walked between the fantastically beautiful Cinque Terre, stopping for dips in the azure-blue marina. I met a wonderful Russian girl called Valeria in the hostel who invited me to Moscow…post-graduation adventure?! Finally I headed back to Rome, not wanting to spend any more money.