Back in Italy

I had no real plan when I arrived in Ancona, I just knew I wanted to be in Rimini by the weekend to see the motorcycle race, so I thought about maybe staying a night in Ancona. I grabbed a slice of pizza and walked around the city for a while looking for a place to stay, but I didn't find anything reasonable and really didn't see anything interesting there so I decided to just go straight to Rimini and stay there. I took a train and reserved a bed in a hostel in Rimini on the way. I've been to there before but this was the first time I've stayed at a hostel. For those not familiar with hostels, they are basically really cheap hotels, but instead of having your own room you pay to have a bed in a dorm with maybe 4 to 12 beds in it, and the bathroom and showers are usually down the hall and shared with others. But the important thing is the price, usually about 12-20 euros per night compared to 50-100 for a hotel. They're always full of young travelers but there is usually an interesting mix of people. I stayed at Hostel Jammin', located just a few blocks from the beaches and near the historic center. It was a nice place, with a large community room and bar to hang out in, free wireless for my laptop, washing machines to use and everything was pretty clean. My room had three bunk-beds in it and when I arrived there was only one other person staying in the room, a slightly older guy from Jerusalem who was traveling by himself. I decided to take it easy for a couple days so I would feel good by the weekend so I didn't do much but look around the historic center a bit the first day. That night there were a few more people that came to stay in the hostel and I met a couple girls in the community room. Cymone (see-mo-nay) from Brasil and Christine from Berlin. Not sure why I always meet Brasilians and Germans when I'm in Italy, but I'm not complaining. Simone's dad was staying in my room and he was there to compete in a track event. Norman is in his 60's and he was going to run hurdles! Unbelievable. Anyway, the next day I went to a nearby resort town called Riccione with Christine while Simone went to help kids in some school, not sure what that was about. Riccione was pretty boring but Christine is cool so we had a good time anyway. That evening I went down to the community room in the hostel and found the girls hanging out, so we decided to go out dancing. We found a place by the beach that was playing good music so we went in, but after a few minutes we noticed that nearly everyone in the place was around 16-18 years old! Kids are allowed into bars in Italy when they are 18, but that was ridiculous, so we left and found another place. It was a lot of fun and the girls are crazy dancers (in a good way)but I couldn't stay out all night because the big race was the next day and I knew it would be a long day outside, so I went back to the hostel around 2:00. Only one thing could take me away from two beautiful girls on a dance floor, and that's motorcycles.Yes I know that sounds crazy, but I had been sick for a few days and I already spent $130 on a ticket to the race and I wanted to enjoy it, so I needed to get some sleep. Now, if you don't care about motorcycle racing skip this part. (start/finish line)

I got to the track as early as I could, around 10:00, and it was already packed with people. I managed to find a spot close to a fence by the track so I could see fairly well as the bikes went by. The track is very close to where Italian hero Valentino Rossi is from so there were even more Rossi fans than usual, with yellow 46 flags everywhere. I heard that people from his town walked the 12km to the track as sort of a pilgrimage to support him, they love him here. The race got started with Casey Stoner leading the championship on a Ducati, which are made about an hour up the road from here too. Everyone was excited and on their feet (of course, there aren't many seats) and ready for a big race. After two laps Stoner was leading on the Ducati with Rossi around 3rd or 4th and it looked like it was going to be a great race. Then on the 3rd lap I heard the PA announcer yelling something (in Italian) about Rossi and the cheering stopped, and all at once you could feel the air sucked out of a crowd of about 90 thousand fans when he told us that Rossi was out of the race. Something broke on his bike and he was finished. It was the equivalent of going to an NBA final with Michael Jordan playing, only to see him loose the air in his Nikes in the first minutes and not play the rest of the game. With the electricity gone from the crowd it turned into a pretty boring race, with Stoner simply running away with it. It was nice to see the Ducati win at home, but a total disappointment not to see Rossi race. Oh well, at least I managed to make it to a GP again this year, the sights and sounds are always amazing.

That evening when I got back to the hostel there were a couple new people in my room. A Mexican guy named William from Miami was there and we started talking a bit. We decided to go get some food together, but when we went downstairs to leave we ran into the girls and started talking with them for a while. We all decided to go out that night, so William and I went for food while Simone and Christine got ready to go. We met them back at the hostel and had a drink there and ended up just staying there and talking all night. It was a good time and they are all really fun. I have decided that staying at a hostel is a really good way to meet people. Everybody is there doing pretty much the same thing and they all come from different places with different experiences to share. It's too bad I didn't try it out sooner, but now I think I will be staying at them more in the future.

The next morning I left and got on a train back to Rome, completing my two and a half week journey where I saw two countries, one island, countless beaches, and traveled by plain, boats, buses, trains, cars and Vespas, making several new friends along the way. A pretty good start I'd say.