Day 80

Ocean Road to Cecina, originally uploaded by Ryan Runs Europe.

41.3 Kilometers.
Tristan and I slept pretty late, waking up a little before noon to warm bread that one of Paolo's roommates had brought us. Tristan and I walked almost 9 km from the north side of town down towards Cecina. When we started running, I went out ahead (my legs were starting to miss running at my own pace) to scope out the roads and town before Tristan got in.
The run was beautiful but difficult, over some rolling hills and cliffs above the ocean. Some of the views were amazing, but because so many people were flocking to the beach any potential extra place on the road for runners was occupied by parked motorcycles.
I got into town in the early evening, and completely wiped I did my usual "drink various liquids until you feel like you need to puke" routine. From there I found an Internet cafe and checked my emails and uploaded my photos, waiting for Tristan to arrive.
When Tristan got in (after also keeping up a pretty good pace) we started wandering around hoping for something to fall in our laps. We soon realized that it is not very probable for one object to randomly fall in two laps at the same time.
The good news was that there was a parade in town that evening, and that the streets were full of people. The bad news was that we had to pay a 6.50 admission fee just to be in the middle of town...and that we didn't yet have a place to sleep.
After getting a quick bite to eat, we went around talking to whoever might be willing to talk to us while simultaneously watching the same handful of floats make loops around the city. Pretty much everyone just told us to go sleep on the ocean or in the train station. We talked to so many people...but kept coming up short. I was starting to get pretty tired, and after talking to more people than I have ever approached in a day, we found ourselves homeless around 1:30 in the morning. Having a tall silent guy standing behind you while you are asking for a place to sleep definitely seemed to make things a bit more difficult than usual. After spending a few minutes in a bar charging my phone, we decided to make one last loop through town and walk the 2 km out to sleep on the beach. Before leaving town, we approached that last group of people to be found on the street, sitting on a stoop in front of a restaurant. They ran the restaurant, and after some talking they let us brush our teeth and use the bathroom, and gave us permission to sleep on the pavement in their dining terrace in the middle of the street. It was covered and surrounded by hedges, so we figured it was just about as good as a room, and we said goodnight and sprayed one another with "Off!"...finally falling asleep on our concrete bed pretty close to 3 am.