We’d just finished an amazing meal and were cracking open our second bottle of Chianti when a group of older Italian men began serenading the crowd. They got an enthusiastic round of applause after their first song and an even more energetic response after the second. To show their appreciation, one of the men scooped up a handful of miniature chocolate bars and threw them into the crowd. I turned my head just in time to be nailed on the brow by a powerful Hershey’s miniature.
“FUUUUUCK! Oh my God, he hit me in the eye; he hit me in the EYE!”
Emily couldn’t stop laughing. I couldn’t stop cursing. After all, who gets sideswiped by a candy bar? When I finally removed my hand from my eye, my lid and brow bone were swollen and red. I looked like I’d just gone a round with Mike Tyson. But that’s why they make Chianti, so I drank up.
The next day, I took my mosquito bites, my swollen eye, and my hangover to the village of Riomaggiore, where Emily and I began our hike through the five quaint villages. It was a perfect day. The sky was a brilliant blue, punctuated by a few fluffy, white clouds. The sun was glinting off the Mediterranean and as we hiked, we looked for a spot to launch the rafts we’d purchased for our long-discussed Mediterranean float. We spotted a quiet cove and began hiking down towards the water.We blew up our rafts and Emily dived in. After a few minutes of floating, she yelled, “Oh no! There are jellyfish—hundreds of them!” Sensing my hesitation to jump in, she tried to encourage me, “Come in! Just stay on your raft and you’ll be fine.”
I chose not to remind Emily that she was 5'2" and didn’t have any legs dangling off the back of her raft as I surely would at 5'10". Besides, this was the dream we’d been looking forward to for three months. I couldn’t let a few measly jellyfish scare me. When would I have the chance to float on the Mediterranean again? I began to make my way in the water but instead of jumping from the pier, I went in at the shore. Big mistake. This wasn’t the soft, sandy shoreline of California that I was used to. This shoreline was composed of very jagged, very sharp rocks. I had to get in—and fast—but the waves kept crashing in and knocking me off my raft.
