Living the sweet life, in small town Italy

As A Kiwi I like things easy! So I was pleased to see the girls crashed out on their back packs waiting for me as the train pulled into the station in Bologna only 20 minutes late. It was a long trip from Naples, mainly because I was still fuming like Mt Vesuvius over the visa sager and the fact that I knew I was going to be staying at a scum of the earth HI Hostel. This had been re-enforced by an email earlier from Ulrika " Just so you know the book says your hostel is crap". I was met by hugs and smiles from the Swedish trio and even a couple of bottles of vino.

Much to my amusement the girls who had arrived a few hours before me had spent their morning walking around trying to find accommodation and had not come up trumps. All four of us waited for the once hourly bus out to the middle of nowhere, so as to stay at this hostel that was literally in the middle of a field. After Naples it was refreshing to have some fresh air and watch the pheasants strutting about the place. Ironically fresh air was what I needed most between having a room mate that smoked weed in our dorm and another guy that had the worst toe jam on the planet ... I am talking make you gag stuff here.

Not much happened here at Bologna, a few churches and a tower that is on a lean, man it took the Italians a couple of goes to learn about consolidation thats for sure. After two days it was back on the train to Rimini and for one of the best Hostels to date go to the Sunflower. The train trip was spent dodging strange guys showing us readings in English they had written down from god knows where and races along the platform when the train stopped from one carriage door and back again before the train left. Yeah don't know what I would have done if I got left behind okay.

Rimini was cool, basically kicked back on the beach and finally got rid of that London tan… yah! Our hostel had a bar with a happy hour that had started at the whim of the Argentinean manager.

Now traveling with three girls has the benefits of any guy trying to chat them up in that he also has to ply you with the same free drinks. Before I knew it shots where going left right and center followed by cheap beers, Elisabeth was off to bed and Rayen, Ulrika and myself were piled into the hostel tour van with this crazy South American that went by the name of Martini. He took us to a night club in town of course via the sister hostel first for more shots. A very fun night was had even if we lost our room key that had a 20 dollar deposit on it.

After four days of Kiwi roasting on the beach the team was off to Venice to wander around the maze of streets and canals. My main aim was to get a train to Slovenia and then on to Split to meet up with the girls again. When I got to the ticket office I was given the great news that the only train arrived at 2am in Ljubljana. That will have to do I said and was pretty happy when Ulrika offered me her sleeping mat she called Mr T as it made her back pack look like a "T" when she had it strapped on top. With that it was goodbye to the girls and on the night train to sleep in the train station.