Weather with me...

I should really apologise to the other tourists who happen to be visiting places at the same time as I am - I seem to be dragging a huge raincloud behind me. Yes, today, as per the last week, it was raining.

Last night in my Venetian hostel was hilarious. The hostel had assigned beds - all the beds have numbers, and they give you the number of your bed when you check in. I checked in, was given bed 11, went up to my room, and found sheets on the bed. I went back to reception and said "someone is in that bed, there are sheets on it". Reception said that someone had probably just forgotten to take the sheets off when checking out, so I should just bring them downstairs. (I knew this wasn't likely - someone was in the wrong bed.) After dinner I was sitting on my bed reading when I am accosted by an angry Asian girl - "this bed taken! get off my bed!". Her mother was there too and started pointing and ranting at me in what I think was Cantonese or Mandarin. I showed her the bed number, my key number, and pointed her to her own bed. She started yelling - "no, that my bed, I sleep there last night, my sheets". (I hate yelling.) By this time, the whole room was listening, and one of the other occupants of the room stepped in to get shouted at too. I gave up pretty fast - "You have the wrong bed. Go and talk to reception." and went back to reading. 10 minutes later, the hostel reception guy walks in with her, and she starts yelling at him. He's pretty much an Italian stereotype, and starts yelling at her and waving his hands around - "why never you look at numbers? this your bed, go get sheets, make bed. not my fault you can't read!" After 10 minutes of this he laughs at her and walks out. She realises she isn't going to get her own way and heads off to get new sheets, and her mother (who is also in the wrong bed), moves her sheets across - and of course, I get pointed fingers and looks and what I'm guessing was verbal abuse in whatever language it was for the next two hours. (Your question will be - why didn't I just take a different bed when I checked in? Because Murphy's Law says that someone will check in at 11pm and be given the bed I took, and reception will make me change beds. I'd rather not have the hassle.)

The fun with the Asian guests wasn't over yet though - at 11pm, 14 out of 16 room occupants were in bed trying to sleep (turns out those "like, totally" girls were on a school trip and their teachers were in the room), but the two others are still walking around talking and rustling plastic bags with their lights on. At 12:30am they finally go to bed, so we can too. Ten minutes later though, the snoring starts. This wasn't the annoying snoring of the previous night, it was an earthquake emanating from the old woman's bed. Soon there are girls from the rooms on either side of ours congregating in our room - that's at least 45 people she's keeping awake. They finally poke her and wake her up and ask her to roll over. After another rude tirade, she does and at 1am, we finally get to sleep.

At 5am, a loud alarm goes off. Who should it belong to, but the old woman, who gets up, turns the light on and starts rustling plastic bags again. I can't believe it and hope she'll go back to sleep - I have to be up at 6:30am to catch a train, but I'm hoping I can get another hour's sleep in. No such luck - she starts boiling water and cooking noodles in a stove next to her bed. I give up and get up. When checking out, I tell the people behind the desk that someone is cooking food in the room and leave. Sometimes hostelling is just one joke on top of another.

This afternoon I arrived in Rome, raincloud in tow. It's not exactly what I had in mind - the ancient ruins are there, but they're right next to Metro stations... it seems a little strange. I got drenched walking around the Colosseum and wandered around for another hour venting my frustrations at the weather on the annoying umbrella salesmen who followed me around. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day for sightseeing.