This time last year: Cycle Europe Day 17

This time last year: June 1st, 2007 Friday 11:00pm
Cycle Europe Day 17: Marina di Massa - Pisa, 30 mi.

Usual routine in the morning, normal start and had bisgedi for breakfast which wasn’t going to last me long. The ride started out quite flat in the morning and was flat almost all the along the way. For most of the way it was like a Hollywood Boulevard with its wide roads (4 lanes), hotels and beach bars/restaurants along the sides. Most of this stretch even had cycle paths. It was so flat along this coast that I started to miss the hilly ones but today, I had other things to contend with. Headwinds was the lesser of my concerns today. I had to deal with 1/2 hour (or less ~ 15 minutes) of solid rain. Totally got me drenched, wet from head to toe literally. Tried to cycle through it but stopped behind some newly completed shop houses for another salami sandwich and a comfort break. Rain stopped fairly quick and I was back on the road and God greeted me with warm sunshine rays.

Had difficulty looking for hostel because the navigator sent me to the wrong place for the 1st time. After finding it, it wouldn’t open till 6pm so I got back into town to see the tower. Wasn’t as big as I thought it would be and everybody else said the same thing. Wasn’t going to spend €15 and wait for another 1:40 hours for my turn to climb it so I told myself I’ll do it next time. Came back to the hostel, still empty, so I secretly took a shower even before I checked in. It was a good thing because others came later. Talked to Sander from Amsterdam for a little while, he’s having a good hitch-hiking trip from Amsterdam to Rome. He could speak most languages so he was alright. Need to speak to ask and have some conversations.

We went out later with Ed, Ruth and Helen and had dinner at a restaurant. I ordered lasagne and we all shared wine. On the walk back, we saw fireflies!!! Fireflies!!! Cool!!! A field with plenty of fireflies. Ed was a production engineer for 5 years and quit his job to join a volunteer program and went to Kazakhstan where he met someone and is getting married next summer. Sander is a physics student. Good fun.

Florence tomorrow. More touristy places like today. Didn’t enjoy Pisa too much, probably because it was too touristy so I’m beginning to not look forward to my Florence and Rome trip now.

Oh, and I also dreamed about Solectron P2 today. JL, Nik, CL Yeoh, Devan Jatkar. Haha… It was about a cheque for payment. Funny man…

Day 17 Accounts
Groceries/Lunch €3.31
Hostel €15.00 @ Pisa
Dinner €9.00
Total €27.31