Earthquake!

As I wrote earlier, the area felt the tremors of a small earthquake Wednesday, but it was small enough that most people, myself included, felt nothing.  It was enough to (pardon the pun) rattle the nerves of locals who are a little wary of Mother Nature after the events of the past few months.

La Repubblica graphic -
Monterosso is to the left, on the ocean,
by the "S" in Spezia.
More or less.

However, at around 4 (3:53 to be exact, according to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica), the earth shook for the second time this week, and it would have been hard NOT to feel it.  I looked over at our kitchen table, which was shaking, and I was confused as I wasn't standing anywhere near it.  I was worried, thinking, "did I run into it and not remember?  What's wrong with me?", but as it kept shaking, it finally registered and I yelled and ran into the doorway.  Also worth noting, Italians need a refresher in earthquake safety, as everyone else ran down the stairs and outside.  Doorframe is where it's at, then, as we ironically noted later on, reading an earthquake safety article, a "sporting field" is also recommended as a place to hide out.  Manuel's sister, Sara, laughed, "And what if your 'sport field' is, literally, on the ocean?"
Point, Sara.
It registered a 5.4, which is enough to (again, pun) shake things up, but not enough to cause significant damage.  However, an already nervous region is again unnerved, as some scientists are warning that this is a reminder that the area does have a good amount of seismic activity, and that even stronger quakes are certainly possible.  The epicenter was not far away, in between Parma and Liguria, and tremors were felt as far north as Switzerland.
I learned the phrase, "Ci manca anche questo", which means, more or less, "Yeah, we REALLY needed this too", sarcastically.  It's an appropriate idiom for these past few months.
And the Ligurian children are lucky they don't have a system where you have to "make up" days of school you missed, like we do in the U.S., because they don't have school again tomorrow (yes, there is school on Saturday mornings in Italy) due to seismic activity.  Regardless, twice in a week, and more then that in 3 months since the flood.

I present the earthquake damage at my apartment: my banana nutella loaf fell over, ha.
Thank goodness that's it.

Ci manca anche questo.