On the road again

The 14th seemed like it was much longer than the 24 hours I had been told it contained. When I awoke from a restless sleep at the Pizzeria Hotel in Luxembourg my only prerogative, besides trying out the Luxembourgish McDonalds and getting a “McToast” which sort of like a breakfast Panini and is absolutely delicious, was getting as far away from that place as I could. I had the idea to go back down to the hostel and see if my former group was still there, and if so, possibly throw rocks at the deserters, but the heft of my spite was far outweighed by my considerable soreness, including a fresh new bruise from the hit-and-run incident only hours earlier. I consulted my eurail travel book and decided that I would again try to get to Thun.
I left the train station around 10:00, tired, sore, and beginning to feel sick, and as my train made it’s way through the Rhine river valley towards Thun, I couldn’t help but let a smile eek out. Using the actual river as our guide, the beauty of the terraced mountainsides made me forget about how uncomfortable I was.
I reached Thun that evening and, as it was with Oostende, became immediately infatuated with the city. A milky green river runs down the alps through the center of town and the people whom lived there seemed to exude a Sense of swiss hospitality, gladly answering my questions as to where the hostel I looked for was, which was after about 90 minutes of me exploring the tourist-friendly town and its various waterworks. In hind sight, I regret taking that long looking around the town, because as beautiful as it was I had wished I was aware of my hostel situation sooner, because as I arrived to the hostel- which was much more than the advertised 10 minute walk from the train station being nearly four times that, I came to realize that the falsehoods didn’t stop at distance. What was described as a “homey hostel that thinks it’s a resort” was actually several shacks placed throughout a vacant lot. Wild dogs roamed the area like patrolling hyenas, hungry for any mean, simply waiting to pick off unsuspecting travelers. I looked over to the one room with a light on and saw the silhouette of a man raise his arm and then strike forward, followed by a low groan, and then another silhouette lunge across the room, tackling him against the wall and immediately decided that I would turn back and take the train to Bern, already aware that this was the only hostel in town and that any hotel was going to cost upwards of 100 euros.
The train ride to Bern was long as it was late and the only trains still running were local transit ones that stopped ever several miles to pick up locals going into Bern for a night out, and with each tedious halt, I became more and more aware of the possibility of there being no rooms available in Bern. A possible re-enactment of the previous night is not what I was looking for. Luckily I was able to find an internet connection at the station in Bern and book the last room at a hostel- once again one claiming to be ten minutes from the train station. I walked up the two sets of stairs inside the Bern train station, ready for another wild-hostel chase, when I heard one of the loudest noises I had ever heard. It sounded like thousands and thousands of trunks of trees, giant redwoods, being violently snapped into. Before me was the bus station. It was a fairly simple design, a tall pointed roof that provided space beneath it for the fleet of public transit the city employed, and while it was very good at serving that intended purpose, as a structure that is designed to avoid being hit by lightning, it failed miserably. An enormous storm had overtaken Bern, the one that followed me from Luxembourg I was forced to assume, and again I would be searching for my hostel in the rain. The storm left as soon as it came, and although the streets had become flooded in a matter of 10 minutes, after 20 the rain had totally subsided, allowing me to enter the hostel only partially soaked. I checked in put my clothes away, and got some chips and a water, sadly that was not only the extent of their “menu” but also the only food I had eaten all day. I sat down at a table next to a taller guy with long hair and a goatee on a laptop. I was exhausted and hoped he would make the first shot at conversation, but after several minutes of silence I threw a softball at him, asking “So, does this place have free internet?”, a basic question, one that wouldn’t take much thought but would hopefully open up the floodgates allowing for something else.
“No” he said, “No, it cost five francs for an hour, not really that bad” I agreed with him without thinking about it, not knowing that I was actually paying 20 dollars a day to get on the internet, “yeah, that is pretty cheap I said”.
There was more silence. He had not taken the bait. As far as I knew he was breaking the unwritten rule that if someone wants to talk to you in the hostel lobby, you have to at least humor them with some very basic conversation.
I tried again, this time taking a more directed approach.
“so what are you in Bern for?” I said, assuming that he would give me a short succinct “im just backpacking” answer, the thing that almost everyone said.
“oh, I’m in between two neuroscience conferences in Berlin, so I just came back here to check out the city, I used to do research for the University here.” He said as if that’s why everyone came to Bern.
I found out that his name was Blake, hewas a 28 year old graduate from Rice University in Houston, and an internet entrepreneur, (too modest to name all his sites he would only tell me about “buildasign.com ”) whom also dabbled in neuroscience. Something about that name must ensure success.
After our conversation ended I was drawn over to a table that had been shouting and laughing the whole night- sitting there were three girls, a natural blonde and brunette, both with longer hair, and a girl with bleached blonde hair cut snug. They all wore floral dresses and looked like they yearned for a different era. There were also two guys- one whom looked like he had just walked out of a frat house on any number of America’s higher educational campuses, and the other with a long black pony tail past his shoulders and a pair of black sunglasses that matched his black wife beater that hugged his lanky torso.
I walked over, sat down, and introduced myself. They reciprocated and I learned that the girls where Nat, Lou, and Kat, respectively, and the guys were Chad and Peter. Chad was, as I’m sure some can guess, the guy who looked like he was in a frat- and as the night went on I found out that he was, in fact, a recent grad of the University of Colorado at Boulder and did partake in the Greek life. Peter and the girls where all from Australia, although Peter was not travelling with them. Talking to them was my first encounter with “aussies”, term they demanded I call them, and if everyone who calls home to the to the same continent they did is as interesting and fun as them I will have no choice but to take my next adventure there. We talked about everything and we talked about nothing- but mostly we just talked. I said good bye to them the next morning and got on my train To Milano. I didn’t to see the sites in Bern, but I can’t say I wanted too. It’s only been a few days but this trip is beginning to wear on me, both physically and mentally. I plan on getting on a night train in Milano and taking that to Sicily where I hope the sunshine will be able to rejuvenate me.