Thursday: I drove to Bournemouth, in the pouring rain. This is about 2.5hrs away, and was not hard to find. I got there early, and went to Bournemouth itself (the airport is a fair way out of town) and walked down the pier in the pouring rain, which by this time had picked up gale force winds too, so I almost blew off the pier. Then I drove back to the airport and sat and waited for the gate to open (I was rather early). I bought myself a book "The world according to Clarkson" which is a compilation of newspaper columns written by Jeremy Clarkson, the guy from Top Gear (not the one who is was in the crash, or the one who looks like a professor). Its quite funny. I read this, while also listening to a man argue with the woman at the info desk, and ask to see her manager cos he missed his flight check in by 30 seconds. It was amusing. I have never been close enough to hear one of those rants before. He said she had no human decency and he had lost faith in mankind. Anyways, then the plane boarded, I was number 1 to check in, and on the first group to board, and I sat in the row over the wing that has an emergency exit, and therefore more leg room. The flight was uneventful, and because of the strong wind, we managed to get there almost 45 mins early, which for only a 2 hr flight was damned good! This was 11.05pm. Then the fun started. I got off, rushed through customs and baggage claim and rushed for a taxi, as I was told by the hostel to catch a taxi to the hostel. There were very few taxis but a few started to drift in. I was number 3 in the taxi queue. The taxi came, I went to get in, showed him where I wanted to go and he said no, to go over and get the hotel shuttle taxi, it was cheaper. So I go over for the shuttle and the driver says "no, full" and drives off. Will there be another? Should I wait? Apparently there was a but that got me nearby, but it should have been already? So I stand and wait and a few other ppl come over and are looking at bus timetables. By this time it's 11.30pm and the queue for the taxis is about 100 ppl as 2 more flights have arrived in this time. The shuttle bus isn't back, the bus hasn't come, the taxi queue is massive. SO at 11.50pm I give up and walk back over to the taxi queue, which by now is down to about 30 people, and just then the shuttle taxi AND the bus arrive. So I rush back over and get the shuttle. Then I arrive at the hostel/camping place I am staying for the night. I check in, the man confiscates my passport as insurance (which is stoopid, cos I have another one on me, AND, what if the place gets robbed, and everyone staying there loses their passport??). Then he shows me to by cabin/shoebox. He waits while I check there is an empty bed. One door has a sleeping person behind it and an empty bed, the other door has 2 empty beds, so I go into the empty bed room and he leaves. I cannot sleep as I am still buzzing from everything that has just happened, so as I toss and turn for a couple of hours trying to get comfy and go to sleep, I turn over and the mattress moves and the slats move too, coming out of the frame of the bed and crashing to the floor, along with the mattress and me. I smashed my leg into the frame as I fell, and still have a nice large greenish bruise on my right thigh. So I get up and move into the other bed (which I didn't chose first up cos I thought slat bed was sturdier than a spring camp bed... stoopid me!) and drift off to sleep.
Friday: I get up at 7.30am, for some idiot reason, after about 5-6 hours sleep, and have a shower. This was an event in itself. The only ventilation above the shower was a little pop out window and beneath it was a fly screen. This had leaves and ants walking around in it, and during the night some of the ants had fallen through and were walking around the bottom of the shower. I turned on the hot water and waited for it to get hot, as I normally do (flushing ants down the drain as I go). It never got to hot. It got to warm, which was going to have to do! So I had a warm shower, got dressed and set off for the tower with my backpack. The tower was "800m <---" so I walked 800m that way, and sure enough, there was a tower! I took bazillions of fotos, and watched the people setting up the 20 or so tourist souveneir stalls along side the tower/cathedral piazza. When I got there, at 8am-ish there were about 20 people, by 10am there were about 200 people. It was glorious weather. I went on an open top sightseeing red bus, and that was nice, to hear about the history of a couple of places. Then it was lunch time, so I had Pizza, of course, and it was quite nice! Great place to people watch, never heard so many different languages in one place, and never seen so many idiots posing for the "look, i'm holding up the leaning tower so it doesn't fall down" photo. So I did my own version of this, considering it was just me.
Then I wondered around a bit more, and got a bit lost, which was frustrating, cos i needed to pee, and the only public toilet i had seen all day was by the tower, and it cost 0.60 euros to use. So I wandered around in circles trying to get back to the tower, walking through loads of kids who were finishing school and loads of uni students on lunch break, and finally found that I had walked further away, but was able to get back to the tower. I paid my 60c and then walked back to the shoebox, dumped my souveneirs and things I had bought, to lighten by load, then walked back to take fotos of the sunset with the tower, and had some rather average fast food, massed produced lasagne, which they probably bough in the UK, but it was cheap and easy! Then I walked back to the shoebox and went to sleep, there were 2 other girls there when I arrived, and the original girl had left, and my room still had just me. Saturday: I woke up to discover another person sleeping in the hazardous bed beside me, which I didn't expect, cos I hadn't heard her come in (god bless the inventor of earplugs!). The I got up, showered, walked to the tower to take sunrise pics, which I managed to get 1, then the sun disappeared behind clouds and never reappeared all day! 
I walked back, checked out, packed, and left, with the plan of walking to the airport (about 5 miles away) via the river and the other non-touristy side of Pisa. About 500m down the road it started to drizzle, so I had to stop, take off my huge pack, rummage around for my wet weather cover for it, put that on, put MY wet weather jacket on, and head off again. It then drizzled for the next hour or 2. My pack was getting so heavy, walking around with it fir the first time as an actual backpack, not just luggage, that my feet were aching, being pushed into the ground. I had to keep stopping, but taking the pack on and off was no easy feat, cos ur slinging 10kilos around ur back, and as soon as u undo the straps to release it, u stop carrying the weight evenly and it all goes thru your shoulders. Anyways, I made it to the main station, went inside for a 40c pee and a slice of pizza, and then the heavens opened, so I chickened out and caught a bus to the airport. Which was a good idea, cos about 90 mins later it was CHUCKING it down and thundering too, and I had I walked I would have been stuck in that. Plane came, number 3 to check in, number 5 to board, got leg room seats! YAY! Then when I got back to Bournemouth I drove 3 and a bit hours up the centre of England to get to my aunt's place for my cousin Louise's b'day lunch on Sunday.
Sunday: I was first up (what a shock) and my legs had completely seized up from 1.5 days of solid walking, 0.5 with a 10kilo pack on my back, and then a 3 hour wait, 2 hr flight and 3 hr drive sitting down. So I had a hot bath, which didn't really help, but it felt nice. Then I helped prepare lunch, and we had a good time, and at the end my other Aunt brought out sherbert sticks she had bought. I told a story of a friend who did a line of sherbert and their eyes fizzed. So my cousin thought this couldn't be done, so he did a line. It was hilarious! He then did another line through the other nostril to even up the tingling sensation in his head! I got it on video, VERY funny stuff! Then I drove back down and went to bed. And that was my very tiring, but rather enjoyable, weekend!
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