I had a little bit of a sleep in in the new room with no view. Some people from New Zealand woke me up really early as they spent a long time rummaging around getting things ready for a big walk they were going to do. Then I slept again. I checked out, and then checked back in, to the room I was originally in. I was able to check in right away because they had already cleaned the room for me. The people who run the hostel are really nice people.
I decided I didn't want to do very much this day. I had this day and the next here in the alps before I would leave, and the previous day made me a bit tired.
I got onto the internet to work out a train ticket that I could buy to get to Cinque Terre which I was supposed to go to next, after I sorted out the problem I had earlier. Then I realised that I'd booked the Cinque Terre hostel for one day later than I should have. I have to check out of the Lauterbrunnen hostel on the 12th, and my first night in the Cinque Terre hostel is the 13th. So for the night of the 12th, I have nothing organised. I had to sort this out. I felt really annoyed at myself for this. I didn't think that I should make two mistakes with hostel bookings in succession.
I spent a lot of time trying to work out what could be done. From Lauterbrunnen to Cinque Terre would involve changing train at Milan. So I considered staying one night in Milan. The hostels in Milan, I think, started at 50 euro per night for something 15km outside the city, to 100 euros per night. Crazy! I also am not very sure that I am very interested in seeing Milan. I think it would be a nice city but it doesn't interest me to a great extent. Also also, splitting the train journey in two does not seem to result in the same cost as one train trip changing train at the location. It seems to result in twice the price.
Eventually I decided that it would be best to go to Venice for one night. I found a cheap hostel. This would be less than the perfect hostel but I think the complaints bringing down its approval rating can be lived with. I think that concessions have to be made when in Venice. It seems to be very expensive.
I was happy with the solution to the problem. It would require paying a little more than I would have had to if I did not make the mistake with hostel bookings. But I also had originally wanted to see Venice.
After booking this and also booking a train ticket (being very precise this time to get it all correct) I then spent the day relaxing a little. I investigated some new music. I downloaded all the albums from a musician calling himself Cloudkicker. He makes a kind of atsmospheric guitar driven metal, using nice polyrhythms to create interesting riffs and epic songs in general. He seems to make music only in his spare time as a hobby, as something purely for his own enjoyment. He doesn't expect to make money from it and doesn't want that aspect disrupting his enjoyment of the making of it, so you can name the price, with no minimum, that you want to pay for his music. I gave him some money because I think his music is great and I like that it all goes to him rather than the vast majority going to a record company. I really like this concept and I think it'd be cool if more musicians would follow it.
Later in the day I felt hungry. I went to get food but found that the supermarket (coop) is closed for the entire day because it is Sunday. I got a thing from the bakery but that wasn't very much. I had a look at some restaurants. The food is really expensive here. Switzerland is said to be one of the most expensive countries in Europe I think. Eventually I got an expensive pizza from a place. From the beginning I was a little unsure that this place would be good. I should have listened to this feeling because the pizza was just average, and I felt a bit bad that I paid an overpriced amount for an average pizza. Even still, I had to eat something, and the other restaurants were all at the same price.
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