leaving rome wasnt exactly the nicest experience i have ever undertaken but after finding the cycle path and climbing over a fence or two with the bikes then cycling down an autoroute for a while we finally headed along the right track....albeit a rather odd one that consisted of a dual carriage way as long as the acle straight just with a couple of hills thrown into the mix.now what was really weird was this old guy from kiwi-land who was going in the same direction as us all the time but he seemed to be going just so slowly, he would tell us that he leaves at like 7 and that 10 (which is when we leave generally)is far too late for us to start but ever day that we were cycling towards napoli we overtook him at some pace and still with some distance to go however we always ended up at the same place as him now tell me if that isnt weird i dont know what is especially with the amount of campsites along the coast we were travelling along.....something suspicious i thinks....
but going back to rome now that is something to write about, i could tell you how beautiful all the arcitechture was and how amazing the sistine chapel was but first i think ill start with shanes inate abililty to get himself into some rather interesting situations well i did assist in this one but was funny all the same.now im not the first person to generalise about another person or like the whole idea of people being what you guess they are but when the hostel manager in rome says to you"ah you are english yes?you must play football???" my first response isnt to shout in outrage at him for being so narrowminded but instead i ask y?he goes on to explain that he has a small team and needs a goalkeeper at which point the light turns on in my head and i nominate shane for the idea...."yes yes goalkeeper"i say"but not me my friend......... the tall one he is a very good goalkeeper... amazing....yes yes he will play for you"so thanks to me and my overzealous attempt to get us some free accomodation shane returns from the toilet to find himself involved in a discussion about gloves to which end he has no idea that he has gotten himself into....of course im standing there laughing at him whilst he gets told to go and change because they leave soon....the ensuing match was like watching a cubscout trying to define the reason that he just wrentched his fellow cub to the floor and proceeded to repeat the new wrestling move that he learnt last night.......completely hopeless.....not just the players but OMG(sorry too many americans about) the final score 6:2 guess which team shane was on...yes you got it the loosing one and having also hurt his foot and groin he finished the match not exactly the flavour of the month with the manager so free nights out of the window we returned to the hostel to meet a ratherannoyed looking aussie girlwho appeared alot younger than she was but to her advantage i would say, whom after being highly stressed at check in joined us for some wine and ended up spending the whole duration of her rome trip with us....great laugh if not hypocratical in not practising what she preeches but it is always nice to know thateven the nicest looking peple have flaws...great fun
anyways if anyone ever has the really clever idea to attempt tp cycle through napoli i have and even better one...DONT!!!!!!! im not kidding the amount of times we nearly got hit ont he way to the hostel was incredible and the roads looked like something that gary had got mad at whilst trying to install and given up half way through......the way back though we discovered the train we wanted to catch(to avoid cycling through the harbour and just get the naighbouring pompeii) left in 40 minutes now 5 miles in any city in 40 minutes isnt exactly wat i would call easy but when your reduced to acting like a scooter and weaving in and out of cars as the only means to get them to notice that your alive its not the kind of palce you want to try it in.having made our epic race through the city the police man wasnt too happy to see us speeding through the train station so after telling us off i ever so politely asked him to tell us where to go but instead of the english a-typical response of to hell he even walked us to our train....however learning that it didnt leave for another half an hour i ws none too pleased that our sprinting abilities and life risk taking skills had even been brought to surface.
the last coupld of days have however made up for the torment of the earlier stages as we found a nice hostel in sorrento which although isnt yha was really good as well.it alll came to a head last night when between mine and shane socialising abilities we managed to get all the english speaking people bar two drunk and really annoying americans who went to and i quote "represent the hostel, and tear up the town"(who we later saw falling into thin air and not finidng it so comfortable or accomodating as the floor seemed to be) and acouple of australians who had a big day the next day, all the rest of us went to a karaoke bar and beeing prtty much the only ones in there the mike was ours to kill our favourite tunes along with dont look back in anger and i want it that way.after a long night of arduous singing we returned to the hostel with the 4 older english guys trying to hit on the 2 younger and may we collectively say attractive girls from australia although the guy werent informed, much to our delight and watchful amusment, of the fact that all the girls out that night had boyfriends.when they found out they still continued on but to no avail.sorry but when you know this and they dont it really is funny to watch them try so hard but get nowhere....back at the hostel at about 2 in the morning the bar nextdoor was still open so we stayed there for a while as one by one all went to bed except me and the australian girls and me being the only one still drinking at this point as the other english guys had returned and brought water and shane was just hungry i feel happy to be the last one standing.the two, by this stage rather drunk, aussie girls were half helped half pushed up the stairs to there room where i left them to try and figure out tactics to get into the room get their toothbrushes and be quiet at the same time(this being at 4 in the morning now) i decided i didnt want to know how it ended so i went to i say crawl but as i was on the top bunk hop into bed as quietly as possible.oh so much fun.
today we cycled the amafi coast which is no mean feat but when hungerover and really tired it was realy hard for me at least.oh well self inflicted injuries cant be blamed on anyone else except the barmen so thanks signoire sleezy italian man...
ttfn
oh off the the other side of italy now........oh the pain of the hills.......
