was Christmas Day, and Chaeli and I hopped on the first train we found to Assisi. The train conductor was very friendly and charged us half price for our tickets! The Umbrian countryside is beautiful and I want to live there. It is much like California, though, and I think that if our lovely state was not so heavily populated and had a greater history of struggle and some impressive crumbling architecture, it could definitely rival Italy for beauty. The train stopped just below Assisi, which is in the hills, in a town called Santa Maria degli Angeli. We did not know that it was not Assisi, though, since the train station was called "Assisi" and there were guidebooks for Assisi in the station gift shop. It took us a while to figure this out and longer still to discover that the busses had all stopped running. I spent the evening in a coffeeshop while Chaeli used the internet cafe round the corner trying to find the hotel in which she had made reservations. We got a ride to Assisi from the guy who ran the internet shop, but since he was a guy of about twenty years old and Chaeli is attractive, he brought along his cousin and they tried to take us dancing. I was a bit uncomfortable with the situation. They seemed like very safe boys, too awkward to be a threat, too genuinely curious to have wicked intentions, but I was tired and just wanted to sleep. They brought us to the hotel to check in first, but by this time, the reception desk was closed, all the lights were out, and we had to find an alternative. The third hotel we stopped at was open, and I asked to be excused from the night's revelry. I took a much-needed bath while Chaeli went out, but apparently the disco was closed as well. So they showed her a hilltop night view of the city, which I am sure was very impressive, and took her back to the hotel safe and sound.
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