Putting Shame on My Game

Last night I settled in to sleep a nice deep sleep in my dorm bed, to be woken (not unusual) by a fellow tennant arriving a couple of hours later. Usually this is at most a half hour ordeal, the worst of them leaving the light on during this time.
This guy set a new record though, giggling hysterically, switching the lights on and off in a manner I can only describe as 'experimental' and banging doors loudly.
The worst though where seemingly bored he decided on impulse to start talking loudly at me in Italian, until I disturbed from my sleep answered 'english' and he said 'where are you from?' and so fourth, after two iterations of question and answer I finally said 'I have to go early tomorrow and need to sleep' then stopped talking. This seemed to work.
At 6.30am he went to the toilet and made sure to slam the doors again 'experimentally' and yelling things in Italian down the coridor presumably to the other dorm rooms.
I didn't stir till much later for fear of more conversation, but when I eventually got up and he entered the room for the 8th time in 10 minutes I said 'g'day' (earlier I neglected to mention he lay down after going to the toilet and said loudly 'I have never been to London, never!' to which I merely kept up my act of sleeping).
I started looking for clues as to why this guy was such a douchebag so impervious to ordinary social convention. The rainbow coloured backpack ala punky brewster said maybe he had some mental incapacity, also the fact he hadn't managed to fit his sheets to mattress or pillow supported this theory. But then the bilingual ability suggested he had at least no problem learning languages. Maybe he was just lonely. I couldn't figure him out.
Now that I admittedly had dubbed it an appropriate time to talk being that we were both awake, I extended the olive branch and said 'so where are you from my friend?' no response. I just continued packing my bags for Venice and eventually he said 'I do not feel like talking now' and that so far is the worst company I've had in hostels.
It is a highly transient experience in hostels, there's people you are in sync with, that arrive when you do and leave the same day, there are people that meander and stay longer that you say bye to one morning or eat lunch with as they follow you around, having seen what is to be seen whilst lacking the language and cashflow to 'immerse' themselves in local culture. Then there's times when you are caught behind, and others are moving on to new and exciting destinations seemingly at the drop of a hat.
And the cycle can happen many times in any one location, you can get stuck between, catch the end of and simultaneously span a revisit from people daytripping out and in again.
But it not a race, I guess though everybody feels something, something different. Sometimes I miss people when they are gone, sometimes I am relieved. Most of the time a hostel is somewhere I can put my bags and forget about them whilst I hit the streets on foot and feel human again.
Italy is not that cycling friendly I must begrudgingly admit, with the mountain ranges and the confused roads. The trains at least accomodate bicycles in a near self defeating convenience, and thus far I calculate that I have saved 72 euros from the bike only approximately 200 more and it becomes a steal.
In the same hostel I encountered this peculiar social inept, I also encountered a Swiss on his way home called Benno, his funny accent made me guess he was from New Zealand originally, he was a cyclist too. The second I had met in Italy, that is an actual tour cyclist with luggage and stuff. His bike was locked up in the same Janitor closet mine was, and it was there before mine so I knew he had faced the same uphill ride to the hostel I just had.
It killed me. For one I was wearing a jacket which cooked me, and didn't relish the prospect of repacking my bags midway as I don't think it was the straw that broke the camels back in this case, I think it was the 9 consecutive uphill roads that did for me.
He though claimed to have ridden the whole way just following the handy signs to the Hostel, that's one thing I'm not used to in Italy, in Australia all roadsigns have the distance left next to them, and very common in intercity destinations too like the airport, turnoff and tourist attractions to have '600m on the left' and so fourth.
I further couldn't believe Benno had done as he claimed when I saw his luggage was what I would approximate as 30kg. I reckon all up mine weighs 12kg at most give or take a few. And I probably in sheer weight had 10 kg on him, except a lot of this is my meaty hillclimbing legs.
He was looking for a way through Switzerland on bike, to which I thought him even crazier than before and he casually remarked that only two roads were open this time of year.
We talked maps and stuff and I knew that his bike riding career cast a long shadow over my 1 week career of touring, where I seemed to be learning everything the hard way, such as the convenience vs inconvenience equations of having a 28" set of wheels for your luggage, the value of maps.
And that was about as much as I could speak to Benno. He checked out while I was shaving or showering yesterday and he was nice enough to leave his card.
Which lead to his website which has a blog and a map of his journey.
and then you have to think, amazing people are everywhere, this quiet, polite and interesting fellow has been riding the world for a year and is so close to home, what he must be feeling now is incredible, and I will probably beat him to Switzerland on account of cheating and grabbing a train from Milan, but I feel something akin to shame, or foolishness at blathering out the challanges of ringroads, uphill rides and carting luggage to this guy, like a fat person complaining about the lack of travelators in an airport to an Ultra Marathon runner.
but nonetheless I feel priveledged, and encouraged. I doubt I'll ever undertake such an epic cycle as him, but I do want to cycle more.