Ben Murrell

I got up at 5:40, packed up, got to the train station at 6:09 for the 6:30am train to Paris. There were no seats left for Eurail pass holders (surprise, surprise) – this is when I learned that there is a limit of 20 per train. There was no turning back this time though, so I paid the … 114 euros (!!!) … for the ticket. Balls, but I already have reservations at hostels. The train isn’t even full. I’m guessing there is enough room for 800 people on this train, and for a good part of the journey it felt empty.

[[I'm just  not going to type this next section... but basically it's about [[Venice girl]] and then reflecting on how ridiculous it is to get hung up on anyone like that on a trip like this. And about weird dreams I had about my ex after spending time with girls.]]

I arrived in Paris and bought  a 24 hour metro pass. The machines only took coins, and I had no coins at the time, so I waiting in a long line behind two kids. One was really annoying and it started to bother me, then I tuned him out. Anyways… I got the metro pass, then found my way to St. Christopher’s hostel. I checked in, but it was too early to go up to my room, so I left my bags in the luggage room then started to head to the Eiffel tower. When I went into the metro station, there was a girl that looked lost so I chatted her up. She ended up being from the same hostel and was looking for a tourist information center (I think). We became metro buddies and rode the metro together for about 15 minutes till I had to get off and switch lines to get to the Eiffel tower. She was cool, and from Australia (A rarity for me – I don’t have anything against Australian women, I just don’t usually run into any that I’d view any other way than platonic). I think she told me her name, but I didn’t hear it, so for the next two or three days I’d run into her and we’d talk and I’d just not know her name! haha. To make things easier, I’ll call her Marigold here.

Anyways, I rode the metro to the Trocadero station to see the Eiffel tower. As you round the corner to see the giant plaza with the Eiffel tower at the end of it, there was a crepe vendor. Seeing this as a great opportunity to have a French experience, I bought a crepe with bananas and chocolate, then rounded the corner and saw the Eiffel tower and ate my first crepe ever simultaneously The crepe was good – I sat on some stairs and finished it, then I started taking pictures. I think I took too many pictures of the Eiffel tower. Oh well!

I came back to the hostel and had the hostel dinner – while there, I met Ryan (Boston), Ryan (Canada), James (Australia), and Bryan (Australia). We decided we’d go to the Eiffel tower at night when it sparkles – we didn’t end up leaving until 11:30 or so though. I went up to my room to change – on the way, two girls gave me the “You’re tall!” and I gave them the “Yeah, you should come to the Eiffel tower with me and my friends,” so they did. They were staying in my room, it was their last night in Europe and they wanted to stay up all night until their flight out. We stopped by a shop on the way to the metro and picked up some wine, then went to the Eiffel tower. We made it at about 12:30 – the Eiffel tower sparkles something like every hour on the hour for 5 minutes. We hung out and waited, and I laid out with one of the girls and had wine while waiting. The Eiffel tower sparkled, we got some pictures, then we all caught a cab to the Plaza San Michel and tried to find a bar. We didn’t have any luck finding anything good. The girls got kind of stuck up so we ditched them at 3:00am, got kebabs, and caught cabs back home.

Got up at 9 to check out of Hostel Baccarat and into Hostel Mayerbeer. After that, I went to the beach for a few hours, then came back and showered. Listened to some pump me up music and read some stuff online to get [[Venice girl]] out of my head. Got in a really good mood then hit the road, grabbed coffee and a 2gb SD card for 7 euros. Then I got a kebab (my first ever!) and some wine then trekked to Baccarat’s courtyard. A bit of background: Meyerbeer sucked. The only good thing they had were computers that I used to upload some pictures… but besides that… they had no common area and the rooms were all away from the main reception area. It was one of the converted apartment style hostels. It was closer to the beach, and that was about it. I walked into Baccarat like I belonged there and went to the courtyard. I met two more Aussies there (Jason and Jade) who ended up being with Pete and Sam. They came back and we all hung out for a while. They had a burping game called Schwartz! – when someone burped, they called out “Schwartz!” and put their thumb on their forehead. The last person to get their thumb up got slapped in the forehead. After this went on for a while, I introduced the color game. We ended up going to the Old Town, then to the beach. Sam was loose cannon with every shady person he met (since he had a lot of money stolen from him the night before). The whole group skinny dipped in the Mediterranean, then we ended up sitting with a Moroccan on the beach with a guitar (Malik). Same got rough with some guys that were sitting around there… they ended up troubling us for the rest of the night. Sat out and sang with Malik on the beach, and also sang this crazy song the Australians had picked up from some American girl a few days before… it went something like “Arribbityboparouba… [words] … I wish that all the ladies …” It was funny! In the end, Sam got punched in the nose/eye and 3 French/German guys with empty bottles gave chase so we got the hell out of there (It ended with us being on the opposite side of the street, and this coked up 14 year old dealer throwing a bottle at us… but being coked up, he didn’t even get it close… ha).

On the way back to the hostel, I was accosted by my first prostitute on the trip. She started coming after me and talking in French and I was just like “No” and she backed down. [[Compare this to Barcelona later...]] When I got into the main building of the hostel, I saw a rat in the stairwell. It jumped down the middle and I heard it hit the ground and scurry off. When I got to the second floor, I couldn’t get the key to open the door. I gave up after a while and got on the wireless with my iPod, made a post about the situation I was in, then tried the door again. Still no luck, so I went up another flight of stairs hoping I had tried the wrong door. On the next floor, I found a homeless lady sleeping in the stairwell – I think I scared the crap out of her… oops! I went back down and tried the key again – I was starting to get desperate. It was past 3am and I had a 6:30 train to catch! I twisted the key HARD – I thought it was going to break, but then the lock turned and the door opened. Success, I got in! And I went to sleep.

This is the most confusing keyboard I’ve used so far… the french have swapped some keys around… all of these are in different positions: awzmq and the punctuation is all over the place. I am sort of typing this entry for the sake of typing and burning time because right now I am transferring 2gb of photos from my SD card to the computer so I can let them upload overnight.

Now that I know my trip is extended, I have downloaded hostel info for even more countries. Tomorrow morning I am leaving for Paris – I’ll be spending 3 nights there, then moving on to Amsterdam. From there, I want to go through the central Europe area and hit Berlin/Munich/Prague/Vienna. I don’t know how long that will take, but if I have time/money I will fly to Greece and spend some time there, then fly to southern Spain and work through there. Like any other plans I have though, they’re not official until I have booked the hostels/tickets… so things may change. Starting to wish I had sprung for the global rail pass and not just the pass for France, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland.

Last night I hung out with a bunch of Australians and New Zealanders. It was funny to hear them say “Hello ladies” because I am used to hearing Elliot say that with an Aussie accent. It was fun!

Today I spent the day out on the beaches of Nice. The Mediterranean is cold, and it wasn’t very hot today but I still took a swim!

Got up around 6:30 and caught a train to nice, but didn’t get enough tickets for the ride apparently (had to switch in 5 minutes and didn’t realize I needed another). When I bought the ticket, the lady that sold it to me didn’t speak English – I thought she was saying to have a good day or what time the train was… it turns out she was probably telling me I needed to buy another ticket when I switched. Oops. The controllato wrote down 58 euros as the penalty but said since “No italiano” and pointed to his eye as if to point to a tear and the penalty ended up being 5 euros plus the ticket price. I got to Nice around 1pm or so and checked into Hostel Baccarat. Met Canadians and Aussies in my room then went into the Garden/Courtyard. Asked a guy where to get food, went and got cherries, a banana, a baguette, and two beers. Came back and sat with the group the guy was with (who I asked about the food). Ended up being cool Aussies/Kiwis/South African on a BusAbout circuit (Peter, Sam, Beck, Sally, Curly, Niel). We hung out at the hostel then went to a bar that was too expensive so we left, bought champagne, and went to the beach. Sam got in to the water and a homeless guy took 200 euros from his wallet. We hung out with another homeless guy with a drum then went to McDonalds (or Macky’s as they called it) then went back to the hostel.

Woke up at 9:00am, put on sunscreen, then got focaccia and pesto and caught a train to Monterosso al Mare. Hiking back to Riomaggiore right now, it’s a 9km hike. Right now, I’m by a nudist beach between Vernazza and Corniglia, about half way. I swear it was a trap – there were signs that said “Free beach! 20 minute this way” on the main trail, and I was hot so I went. Only when you get to the bottom do you see the signs that say “Naturalist Beach –>”. I wrote postcards and journal entries here and am now goign to head back to the trail and continue back to Riomaggiore.

Cinque Terre was beautiful. I hiked the 9km in about 6 hours then came home and hung out with the roommate for a while. She felt sick, so I went to eat/drink alone and watch the sunset. Got an olive calzone, not many people out on the rocks. I wasn’t feeling well (emotionally) as it was quite lonely and I knew [[Venice girl]] was somewhere in Cinque Terre. I went to bed by 11 and was woken up by Janita coming in around 4:00am with some Italian guy.

I left [[Venice girl]]’s apartment at 9:30, checked out of Plus at 10:00, then called Delta/Travelocity to cancel my return ticket. Got a $510 credit with Delta. One way ticket on the 28th is $2500 out of Rome right now, so I held off on that. After that, I hopped on the net and found no hostels in Cinque Terre but booked Nice for the days after Cinque Terre. Then I went to the market and got a sandwich, then caught a 12:57 train to Cinque Terre. I sat by two people from Lee’s Summit (Riki and Rae) completely randomly, talked with them a lot and got recommendations on what to do and where to go now that my trip is extended. I ended up missing my stop but caught another route with a girl from Canada. Found a hostel (Mar Mar) without a problem and explored Riomaggiore (the first of the Cinque Terre / five lands). Met my hostelmates after a nap (Erin from Google and Janita from New Jersey) and had a beer on the giant rock beach as the sun went down with them. Had dinner after that, then went to bed at 1:00 or so.

I’m just now getting ready to leave from Florence to Cinque Terre. Florence was awesome – there are a lot of art galleries including one that houses Michelangelo’s David. I stayed in a different room each night, and stayed an extra day once I found out that I would get to stay a whole month longer in Europe.

The first hostel I stayed at was run by two people and they were really friendly and helpful. The second hostel felt like a hotel, but was actually cheaper… both rooms I stayed in had their own bathroom/shower, were air conditioned, and had flat screen tv’s in them. They had a cool bar at the top of the hostel and you could see out over all of Florence from up there.

Anyways, I need to work on finding a place to stay in Cinque Terre – I should have booked yesterday. Yesterday, there was a lot of availability for the weekend, but now there is nothing. Hostelworld is only showing 2 hostels there, so there may be more, or there may be cancellations… and I read on wikipedia that there are a lot of cheap apartment type places you can rent for the same price as a hostel.

Today, I checked out of Plus and checked right back in. Got a room on the girls only floor lol. Went to the Uffizi Gallery and to another museum by it and also went to the market and got a FRESH panini – awesome! Bought an Italia shirt today after the museums, and now need dinner and a shower. 1 month left as of today!

I never ended up getting dinner – I was supposed to go with some Argentinians but they never came back to the roof of the hostel. Instead, I hung out with a guy from Brazil for a while, and then with two girls from New Jersey from Wednesday night pre-DubPub. Around 10:30 or 11, I headed to Dublin Pub to meet the girls from Venice. Hung out with them/Damiano/Mossimo/Pietro/Marco/Giesseppo for the night and danced with the Italians for a few hours at a club. We were headed back at about three and [[Venice girl]] offered to let me stay at her place so I did. She shares a room with another girl that is studying abroad… I don’t really know what to make of her, but I think I creeped her out? I don’t know, and I’ll probably never see her again (they’ll be in Cinque Terre for the weekend, but I’m not going to put any effort into meeting up) and there are 9 million other women here, so who cares…

[[End my hand written section, begin commentary]] So, it’s not like I’ve forgotten this girl’s name or anything – I’m just slightly embarrassed about the whole situation I guess… Looking back, I didn’t handle it well at all. It’s not entirely my fault – I was in a lot of situations I’d never been in before and didn’t really know how to react or what to do – also, I hadn’t quite built up the confidence with that I had by the end of the trip. Anyways, I was really hung up on that girl for a few days, then I was in Nice and everything was nice again

Got up at 10 today, checked out of Florence Youth Hostel and into Plus Florence. Right now, my laundry is drying, then I’ll go hop on the internet and try to find a place to go after Florence. Options in Italy are Verona and Genoa, but I’m not sure. Then, I’ll check my bag in at Plus. I think I will rent a bike for the day and ride around, then go to the Dublin Pub tonight and meet John van Lieshout and the Venice girls. Tonight is the Barcelona/Manchester United soccer match and there is another pub that is supposed to be good for that. I will probably meet up with Rocky and go club if I don’t find [[Venice girls]] at Dublin Pub.

Also, I have a hell of a farmers tan.

Got into Plus, took a shower, then walked up to a big group and got the ball rolling to Kiesh (the place to be for the soccer match) to watch the match. Never saw Rocky there (he came later it turns out) [[I should have gotten a phone...]] but they had a buffet and drink for 8 euros so we did that. Drinks were 8 euros after that, so we came back to Plus Florence and watched the match there. Met a club promoter (Arienne from Quebec) in front of the hostel and convinced her to come in with us. She was hot. Watched the match then everyone bailed on her club for Central Park. I needed to get to Dublin Pub to meet John from Venice by 11, so I left the big group then. When I got there, Jena saw me and was like “BEN!” Jacque wasn’t there, but they kept telling me they were calling her to get her to come. I went in and met John, then we came out and sat with the girls and some Italians. Jacque showed up, we all hung out for a while, then wandered around some park by my hostel. May be going to Cinque Terre after Florence.

During the day, I went to a bike place and rented a bike for the day. I rode along the river and up to the Piazza san Michelangelo. Then I hiked up there and could see the whole city. It was a good view, but not quite Rome… Also, it was looking pretty stormy and I was at least a 30 minute bike ride from where I got the bike. Thankfully, it never rained! Then I rode back and called Garmin and home. Garmin let me push back my start date to June 29th! I’m here another month!

I have been keeping a journal of the stuff I do each day and the places I go. When I get home, I will type them up and put them up on here – I don’t want to spend all of my time here on the computer typing stuff out… for now, I write in the journal when I am doing other things like riding trains or waiting for laundry to dry.

I’m in Florence right now, and I’ll be here one more night. I think I am going to head to Cinque Terre which is a bit south of Genova. If Garmin extends my start date, then I may stay in Florence an additional night depending on how the rest of this day goes (I plan to rent a bike and explore some of the destinations that are a bit further away from the center of the city).

Anyways, I’m having a really good time here in Europe even though I still haven’t managed to break out of Italy – the people are great, the food is great, and there is so much history all around you. If I trek towards Cinque Terre, that will put me near Nice, France which has nice beaches and is on the way to both Paris and Barcelona by train.

Ciao!