ok so now we are in riva del garda, for those of you who dont know where it is look at the north of italy at the bigest lake and right at the top you might find us.
the trip from ancona has been a rather interesting one so i shall begin from there......
we left ancona and headed to a little place called rimini just along the coast from there well i say just along the coast but you know what me and shane are likle by now just along the coast equates to about 50-80 miles along....but enough about that......we got to rimini and evetually found the hostel after asking a few taxi drivers and getting a bit loast around the back streets in a very confusing one way system, once there things looked up however as the people has big smiles and all seemed clean and nice.....skip to morning......we awoke and got ready to get going bags on bikes, lycra on and all limbered up nicely when shane comes up with a great idea....im a bit tired do you want to stay another night???i look at him and my first reply was something which i would rather not put on here but after along of whining and questions i finally arrived at a decision....if the go-kart track we passed yesterday is open today we will stay if not then no.....so after consulting the rather ravishing red-head behind the counter shane came back out with a big grin and a phrase "get the bags off mate".....so after pratting about with the bikes for a while longere and returning to the same room as before but the othe side we changed again and got ready to head off to the track.the new plan was to hit the track then come back and hit the beach but as you have all figuredout by now nothing on our little trip is as easy as it sounds.....we got bak onto our bikes and headed out of town towards the track that we had seen on the way in, i thought he was joking when he said 5 miles out but no it was nearly at the main road and afer he airport, however when we got of the road and headed towards the track we had seen we realised something was missing.......cars.......at least ones our size........we had stumbled across a toy car racing track not a go-kart track as we had origianlly hoped for. a the thought of going back without and driving action we asked if there was another one about, the direction he gave us confused us somewat as we had come from there and no seen one along there.......but holding faith of local knowledge we went off in the direction given to us and sure enough after about 1km we found a huge go-kart track and massive signs on both sides of the road directing us to it....needless to say we werent impressed at our own lack of observational skills the previous day.after filling our need for adrenaline and two fairly evely matched races with pollen as a hazard and mcdonalds weighing us down in the second race we returned back to the hostel. on our return we went to head towards the beach untill shane realised what day it was and the huge event taking place that day.....fa cup final so of course the next logical step is to try to find a bar with sky tv watching the game instead of he beach after meeting dead ends all over the place we returned to the only bar watching football and shane pleeded with the man for some kind of repreive from his non football orientated state the man said ok yes but he had his own atch to watch so siting in a closed resaurant watching italian 1st division football and the fa cup we didnt buy aything and made friends with the restarant owner(shane had prevously been heard to say,"how come in a country like this they arent showing the final from the best league in the world" i sorry but this is italy they think if it isnt theres its not good and especially when it comes to football)when the game had come to its exciting if not unexpected conclusion we left the bar with a promise of return for his food later on that night but privately thinkning we migh go somewhere else instead......this is where the towel insidents began, i went upstairs and to the loo whilst shane couldnt hold it for two minutes to get back to the hostel so he arrived at the door as i was finishing and i heard him speaking, it being shane i obviousl thtough immediately that he was talking to himself about me having locked the door and no being there but when i had washed my hands i found him running down the stairs and a girl in a towell standing there in his wake(my immediate reaction was the shout shane in a manner he might come back here and see what i was seeing but obviously it didnt work as he continued on the way down) so of course then i urn to the random if not slightly embarressed girl in the corridor and ask whats going on, im told she somehow got locked out of her room the details of which were a bit hazy as to be honest i was finding it a little hard to concentrate wondering what shane had to do wit it and then she told me that he was saving her from going down in a towel and askin for a spare key.i made a joke o it asking to see if our key worked in her door and she gave a frightful reply and relieved sigh as i discovered it wouldnt turn..........oh the shame..........so after opening my door i asked the normaly quesions where you from what you doing and arent they some nicely shaped tan lines on your shoulders.........shane finally returned and afer helping her and closing our door behind him the elongated word that was uttered from his lips had never been so well placed.........."MATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"..........i did have to agree it was a very worth mate situation to be in at that time.again skipping ahead to a clothed......steph......and a few beers later we were about to go out for food when we came across a couple of girls sitting at the downstairs bar, insulting them by calling thm american isnt the best way to strike up a conversation but it seemed to work with amusement for us in it as well,(canadian). i had gone upstairs to get a jumper when shane said put your jeans on, i asked why and apparently we were going to be going out with the girls to some random bars of something they had been told about, so much for him being tired as a reason to stay there another night.......eventually after photos introductions and directions we made our way as a group of 6 to the restaurant that me and shane had spent a good hour in during the day without spendin any money so that we could eat.after much dilemma about the choice of wine and the splitting of the bill according to the quantities drunk of each drink(at one point i was waiting for then to get the tape measure out and examine the glass so they could see exatly how many cents the french girl should have to pay for the wine).we ended up at completely trendy quite loud and funny bar where drink after drink followed and loosing 2 members of our group before we eventually got to the stage of heading to the beach bar which ended up to be a 25 euro trip away.(the last remaining girl bar steph with us was named jenny) we headed to the bach bar clu thing and after getting confused about the bar ordering system having to pay at a completely different place to that wich you get your drinks at we then went off to dance.....and when i say dance we ended up on the tables with steph having dissapeared with a man mountain of a sleezy italian and jenny retaining her presence with us and the 3 of us boogying on down and getting told off for holding onto the mbrella for support on the not very well balanced tables.u think clubs in england are easy to loose people in at least they have boundaries, afer going to the toilet and returning to find both shane and jenny gone i had to run around the club like a maniac untill i first found and then re-lost shane and then found jenny and re found shane.steph had been completely absorbed by the italian so she said she would get home with him......so the 3 of us eventually got back after jenny found some people from the hostel who were driving back that way so gave us a free lift....result....on returning to the hostel shane headed straight up whilst i stayed for about 10 minutes to chat with jenny, however when i did return to the room i found it locked and the only sound was snoring (i later discovered tha shane had gone right off to sleep and someone else had locked the door from our room and had earplugs in so i was completely screwed) contemplating a night on my own on the stairs i when back down and found that jenny also come across the same problem with her friend from earlier in the night having gone back and locked the room so we headed upstairs to the roof after being told we werent allowed to sit in the bar area.watching the sunrise was a nice way the spend the mornin hours when the person falls asleep and your left to contemplate how you are going to survive the coming ride to bologna without any sleep at all.....i wasnt impressed with shanes lack of sympathy for me either and when he in turn locked himslef out of the room after having a shower the second towel insident was evident as he had to come down to the reception to get anoher key.the third was when we were eventually saying goodbye to our friends and jenny reappeared in a towel to see us off.the hostel of towels and lockouts .....interesting times.
we have surivived and after meeting shanes nan on holiday and racing against the sun to get to verona from bologna (biggest day 92 miles) we are all ok and ready to head off to the alps now.....
bike has been repaired a further 2 times so still not impressed with it but i will keep on going.....
food is waiting and ive been o here way too long so ttfn
x
