Day 110

Pool, Gioia, originally uploaded by Ryan Runs Europe.

34.1 Kilometers.
Francesco had left early for work and I slept until almost 10 am. When I left the apartment it was almost 11. I found an Internet cafe and worked for a little bit, but before I could get much done they closed for lunch (which in this part of the world is a three to four hour endeavor).
I went to a sandwich shop and got some breakfast/lunch, and before I left I made a ghetto package for the remainder of my Nesquik powder out of some of the paper used to wrap up sandwiches. It didn't make much sense to run with a giant yellow plastic jar.
The run to Gioia del Colle was beautiful, straightforward and flat. There was nothing but fields, and the last 10 km were on a narrow side road through some very pretty farms.
I felt good.
When I got into Gioia del Colle, I was very thirsty. There were no fountains during the run, and I was pretty happy to find an open supermarket right when I got into town. With four Euros I bought two apples, a liter of some tropical fruit juice, a liter of fresh milk and a six pack of cheap popsicles. I sat outside and mixed up a delicious bottle of chocolate milk with the remainder of my powder and proceeded to work my way through an apple and 5 and a half popsicles (they were small).
I spent the rest of the daylight hours wandering around town. There was an "Oktoberfest" party getting set up in a little piazza, and I walked past a Jazz club that would be open later in the evening, so I figured my night couldn't end that badly.
Around 8 pm the Oktoberfest crew started trying to draw a crowd: there were two people on stilts and a third guy who had a game where you needed to catch a broomstick. If you won, you got a free beer. I (like everyone else) did not win.
As the Oktoberfest started pulling in more people, I decided to check out the Jazz club to see if there was any good music going on (or some laid back people who wouldn't mind giving me a place to sleep). There wasn't any live music this night, but before I could leave I got sucked in to sitting down and having dinner at the restaurant. I was hungry and had a good and slow meal. There were a lot of young people working in the bar who kept coming over and asking me questions about my trip. When I finished my meal, I went over to talk to one of the guys from the restaurant who was sitting with two guys around my age. As we talked, to more of their friends came over and we decided to go play some billiards. One of the friends said that she had a room I could sleep in with a shower, so the rest of the night was pretty laid back. We went to a pool hall, and around 1 am we headed to a nearby town where they were all from. It was at this point that the friend with the key remembered that she had left the key to this room with her uncle and that it was now too late to call. We sat down at a cafe for a while before resolving that I would have to sleep in the car for the night. I drove around with Marco and Gianluca for a while, occasionally dropping someone off or picking someone else up. Right when I started getting incredibly tired, we pulled the car over and they threw back their seats and said goodnight.
I was confused for a minute:
"What are you guys doing?" (they are in the front two seats, I am in the back)
"Going to sleep."
"Why don't you go to sleep in your beds and leave me in the car?"
"We feel bad you have to sleep in the car."
"But...you have to work tomorrow morning. If you sleep in the car as well it will be more uncomfortable for all of us."
"Don't worry about it."
At this point it was after 3 am, and we had to be up at 7 so that Marco could go to work. I stopped worrying about it and started worrying about how much it sucked to not be able to straighten my legs. I guess all the worrying made me tired though, and I was asleep before too long.