Sun, sun, sun GET OUTTA MY FACE

Since Keegan is in school and Ben seems to have fallen off the face of the Earth and won't even answer me on Facebook whether he got a new passport or not, I might as well continue the trend of being the only one to post anything. I am camping tonight in a town called Laigueglia (Lie-goo-liya). If you're following along on a map, you might be thinking, "Whoa. He's done more than 450 km in 3 days. What a champion." Or maybe not. Maybe you're harder to impress than that, or you just have no idea how to measure distances with a system that makes sense, and will only understand how far I've gone if I use the glue-sniffing, crack-smoking unit of measurement known as miles. Okay, I'll oblige. 450 km is 270 miles (1.6 km in a mile, 0.6 miles in a km). Anyway, the reason you may or may not be thinking that I'm awesome is mostly that I am, but partly because I took a train part of the way. I didn't want to, but it was kind of necessary. Well, not necessary, but... Maybe I should just tell the whole story.
I rode from Florence to Pisa (as expected, my plan didn't quite pan out and I ended up going through Pisa again instead of north of it) the first day. This was no great feat, and I wanted to ride farther, except I went straight through Pisa and kept following the river another 10 km or so to the ocean, thinking I would turn north and ride along the coast. However, I found out once I got to the coast that there is a natural reserve with no roads going through it north of the river mouth, so I was forced to ride back to Pisa and spend the night there. The campsite was way overpriced, but I was so tired (backtracking takes it out of you way more than making progress, for some reason) that I just sucked it up and stayed there. It was a nice place at least; sweet showers, a pool, a market where I got breakfast, and live entertainment. Next day I rode north on the SS1, a road that bicycles are allowed on, but is lacking in any concessions to them other than a foot-wide shoulder (yes, I realize I'm being inconsistent by calling miles retarded and then using feet, but 1 foot sounds better than 0.3 meters). I made excellent progress for 60 km or so until I got to Cinque Terre National Park. Literally meaning "five lands", Cinque Terre is the area around 5 small towns that are located, as so eloquently described by Meghan and Shannon, in the "armpit of Italy". They are built on the sides of the steep coastal hills and canyons, and it's a really beautiful place. I was looking forward to a pretty, if hilly, ride through the park, but I quickly found out that the road didn't go through to the end of the park because it was washed out by a flood. I really didn't want to ride back the 25 km or so to the intersection with a different road that went north, so after some asking around I discovered that there was a train that goes through the park. I feel terrible for the people that had to build it (it's basically one giant tunnel except for the stations), but I'm glad they did. After not buying a ticket (mine was covered by my Eurail pass, and I didn't need to pay any extra for the bike), I took an hour-long train ride through the park and a bit past, almost to Genova. I spent the night in a very well-priced campground with great facilities, free internet, beach access...oh, and a 2 km ride up a veritable cliff face to get to it. Oh well, it was a fun ride down in the morning. After said roller-coaster ride back down to the main road, I continued north, through Genova, and around the curve of the bay so I was once again heading south. And here I am. Now, in defense of my claim that I'm awesome; I rode just as far today by bike alone as I went yesterday by train and bike: just over 150 km.
Now all that riding makes for a serious appetite. I thought I ate a lot normally, but biking all day results in about twice as much. For instance, today I ate 5 bowls of müesli (a German cereal that's like granola but without whatever stickiness holds the clusters together) mixed with hazelnuts and a peach for breakfast, 6 sandwiches throughout the day, and a Costco-sized pizza for dinner. And now I'm hungry again.
And now for something completely different.
Things that I've seen in the last couple days that I never have before:
-a nun on a Vespa
-a firefly
-a Vatican priest on a road bike, his black robes billowing magnificently behind him
-a Dutch guy with an epic backpack tan
And I guess everything else, too.

Basilicas, Pantheons, and Duomos

Unjoking amounts of things have been happening in the last couple of days, but I will endeavor to address them all. So picking up where I left off, or rather a lovely 8 hours of sleep later: I woke to the sun once again doing its best to melt me. Under its rays I packed up, ate breakfast, left the campground, and rode the remaining 16 km to Venice (plus or minus a few to account for the signs being on crack). I had a fantastic, unhurried ride across the bridge to the island, and absorbed the open space and light breeze as much as I could while the overcrowded alleys and high prices of Venice drew closer. Then after an estimated 2 km (!) of riding on the bridge, I was in the city. And what a city it is! One can not help but be enchanted by the canals, old-world feel, and bustling alleys of this watery island metropolis.

 My first task was to make sure I could get myself and my bike on a train to Rome the next day, which I did (with the begrudging help of the grumpy old man behind the ticket window) for a whopping 3.5 euros. This bought me a bike pass that was good for 24 hours after validation; my own ticket was covered by my Eurail pass that I had bought online and had delivered to the hostel in Munich. Or I should say tickets, as I would have to take 5 different regional trains to get to Rome as the fast national trains aren't equipped to deal with bikes. But that was still all in the future (past, as I write this now, but future then). I next went to find the hostel that the guidebook recommended, and for which I had über-intelligently not booked in advance. They were, of course, full. But they sent me down the alley to spend the night in the house of a guy named Franco who I had already coincidentally met right outside the hostel as I tried to find a place to leave my bike while I went into the hostel. The spot I had selected was right in the way of him, his contractor, and a large stack of drywall on a dolly. When he saw me putting my bike in the alley that was already barely wide enough for the drywall, his eyes widened in fear and he told me that this was "a very big problem!" and had me lock my bike in front of his house that I would (unknowingly at the time) be staying in that night for the truly ridiculous price of 45 euros. That's Venice for you. After assuring myself that he was legitimate and his house safe, I left my stuff in the room and headed off to explore the city. It is an incredible place, but it wasn't long before the lack of any undeveloped land started to get to me. If you haven't been to Venice, it's hard to grasp how many buildings they've managed to fit on their limited real estate, and after all the open farmland that we had been riding through for the past month, it was a strange transition.

 So I got irrationally excited (and a few stares) as I took a picture of a 10'x10' patch of grass that bravely persevered in the stone jungle that surrounded it.

To make a long day seem short (to you, that is), I did other things, slept that night, then got up early and began my all-day mishmash of train journeys to Rome at 7 am.

The train rides were nice enough. It was a welcome break from biking, and I met some interesting people: a fat Italian priest who had just finished a month-long walking pilgrimage from Seville to Santiago, Spain and an Australian girl who blew my mind by revealing to me that the capital of Australia is not Sydney, as I had thought all my life, but Canberra. I was very embarrassed to have placed myself in the "stupid, insular Americans" group that I have always thought myself separate from, but she soon evened out the tables of ignorance by saying that Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain in Australia (it's Kosciuszco, and Kilimanjaro is in Africa). While we were competing over who knew least about her country, I mistakenly eavesdropped on a conversation a few rows behind me where someone was saying, "Yeah, I started biking in Oslo and have been riding south..." Now there's a conversation starter gift-wrapped on a silver platter if ever I've heard one. The speaker was a girl from Wisconsin named Meghan, and with her was her lifelong friend Shannon (who had joined Meghan later in her trip in Switzerland). We immediately hit it off and decided to spend the next day exploring Rome together. This was fantastic for me, as Meghan had not only studied abroad in Rome before, but just graduated the University of Oregon with a Bachelor's of Architecture. So the next morning we met in front of St. Peter's Basilica and spent the whole day walking around Rome, with Meghan leading Shannon and I around to all the best sights and educating us all the while about the history and architecture of all of Rome's awesome stuff (and there's a lot to see). Some disappointment over the Vatican Museum being closed, lots of walking, even more stone, and several gelatos later, we parted ways at around 8 pm in the Piazza del Popolo. I was sad to leave them, as it made the day so much more meaningful to have someone to share the experience of seeing all this awesome stuff with, even if we'd only just met. Not to mention they are both great humans who were fun to be around. Happy travels, Meghan and Shannon! Hope to see you again.

I next went to a bar and watched Italy get destroyed by Spain in the UEFA final before heading back to my hostel amid the defeated silence of the Italian streets. I headed out first thing next morning (today) with the intention of catching a train to Florence, but upon getting to the train station, I saw that there was a train to Pisa leaving an hour earlier than the one to Florence. Now Pisa is only about 100 km due west of Florence, and I had been planning on biking out of Florence and through Pisa on the way to the coast, which I would ride along into France. But on an impulse made possible by my Eurail pass and my newly purchased non-route-specific bike pass (same as the one I bought in Venice), I instantly formulated a new plan: take the earlier train to Pisa, see the tower, and then get another train to Florence before the end of the day. This plan hinged on two things: that the tower was only a quick ride away from the station in Pisa, and that there were multiple trains a day from Pisa to Florence. I took the calculated risk that both these things would be the case, and thankfully they were. In fact, the whole thing worked so well that I got into Florence at 4:30 pm, leaving me plenty of time to see the major sights before heading to my hostel.

The ever-present juxtaposition of old and new in Europe was taken to a new level when I emerged from the bustling, modern train station in Florence and the first thing I saw was the imposing 15th-century brick facade of the basilica of Santa Maria Novella (the church from which Florence's main train station gets its name). I explored this and the other main things to see in Florence (except for the museums; thus far this has been a museum-free trip except for the Folk Art Museum in Innsbruck) quickly, making this whole day a model for efficient tourism. Not sure whether that's a good or bad thing. Anyway, Florence is epic. Home to Michelangelo and mega-influential Renaissance families the Medicis and the Uffizis (among many others), the city is packed with art, churches, and other miscellaneous awesomeness. Probably the most striking thing is the Duomo, one of the world's biggest Gothic cathedrals. I went up to the very top of the cupola, which offered amazing views of the city. But one thing about the Duomo bears special attention. Actually, this is a phenomenon quite common in churches all over Europe, but it was taken to such a level in this one that I just have to address it: the art in churches is scary. Like, seriously messed up stuff. Case in point: the fresco on the inside of the Duomo's cupola is a vast scene depicting angels and good people in heaven at the top of the dome, and slowly degrading the farther down the dome you go until the bottom row of figures are the demons and accursed that occupy hell. It's the hell bit, in particular, that I'm saying is messed up. People being eaten in gruesome detail by demons. People being anally raped with flaming sticks. People having limbs torn off. And this is all in a church. I mean, I get that that was the sort of fire and brimstone preaching that was the norm in those days, but seriously. Anyway, I saw as much of Florence as I could before grabbing some dinner and making my way to my hostel. This latter was a bit of a challenge, but it was surmounted. This hostel is crazy; it has stonework and decoration comparable to some of the smaller churches in Rome, but it's still quite cheap. This will be my last hostel stay for at least a week. It's been nice having a cold shower every night and a bed to sleep in for the last 4 nights, but tomorrow it's back to the open road and camping. I plan to ride to the coast following a route that goes just north of Pisa, and then ride along the coast all the way to Marseilles, where I will get a train the rest of the way to Pamplona in time for the end of the Festival of San Fermín and its bulls. At least that's the plan, but none of those things (plans, that is) have held up too well on this trip. We'll see what really happens.

Word

Here is my final post as a tramp for the next two months:

Instead I will be regarded by the categorizing public eye as a student; tomorrow I begin an 8 week course in Italian language at Idea Verona School of Italian Language, Culture, and Art.  I will also be participating in an OperaVerona vocal masterclass with the possibility of playing a role in either The Marriage of Figaro or The Magic Flute, so it is quite an exciting transition of lifestyle.

But my work in the days to come will be fueled by an energy that does not diminish which has been poured over the pores of my skin, through my orifices into my soul and which comes from the beauty of the world I have seen, heard, smelled, felt, and savored upon my tongue.  I will remember the precious moments of our journey.

On day one we set out and knew whadda do
We were gonna see the world and seek out the truth
Just Wade, Ben Koppl, and me for a crew
So from Southwest to Northeast, three-headed beast, we flew

First my bro and yo hadda flow through Berlin
Where we could see on the street the kinda city we be'd in
Seen a German badass, leather vest, gold ring, bronze skin
And I'd say those street perfomers really know howda win

Then we headed up to Scandinavia
Norway was our way. Oslo ain't pronounced with an "aw"
We joined in with some friendly bikers that we saw
And rode on down to Gothenburg, where Ben had come to thaw

After Iceland
Said it was nice land
Next day we all took a ferry we were craving Danish spice, Man.

We rode and rode and whoops, wrong road,
We rode 'till we might explode
Saw horses, thatched rooves, a Gobi camel!
And words we did not know

Then suddenly we were back in Germany
Except for Ben, who was just in Germany
And who also inspired this because he likes to freestyle rap and then lapse into prolongated segments of explanation when he can't think of a rhyme...
...in Germany

We took a train straight to the South
where urban surfing had broken out
Not a bad place for Ben to hang about
While my bro and yo set sights on the mount

So we spent one night in Austria
Then coasted down to a lower area

Where the people sort of sing when they speak
I thought for sure I'd need more than a peek

Our fellowship is split in three
But we'll still share online you see