PART 1
Midnight in Pisa. Brr. Perhaps the tower is just leaning so it can be close the fire. It was an icy and disturbing night at the Pisa Central. We were at the beginning of our long journey home. A train from Pisa to Rome. A train from Rome to the airport. A long flight to Doha and then a longer connecting flight home. A total travelling time of 36 hours with no sight-seeing or eyelash-batting time. With only a handful of Euros left, we were booked on the 2am-not-so-bright-hours-of-Sunday-morning-o-clock train to save on additional accommodation.
2 hours early for our first train, in a dingy station made up of people that could have been extras in Alien. There was a fully kitted army sergeant, groups of only-eye Muslims, some Chassidic Jewish tweens and of course…a nun or a well-dressed prostitute, one can never be too sure. I thought I was at ground zero. That this was it, that I would be the very first ashes of the mushroom cloud. Don’t look, don’t talk, play dead.
Then, a familiar shiver, the unmistakeable need to wee! WHY NOW?! WHY HERE?! WHY WHY WHY is one boob bigger than the other, WHY?! A half an hour debate took place whether it was worth going to find a toilet, who should go first or if we should both go with our 900Kg pulley-less bags. No, one at time, her first. I loved her, but the fish were biting and we were both bait. She was off. I waited, huddled, staring into the depths of my own retina trying to avoid eye contact with all major and minor religious groups around me and concentrating on flexing my lemonade muscles.
She came back, poltergeist-pale with the bottom of her long trousers drenched and the look of a 5-year old experiencing regret for the first time, knowing they had just done something very very wrong. ‘Don’t do it’, she said trembling and digging in the bags for clean trousers, ‘Just…don’t’.
Now curiosity as well as an exploding bladder was killing me. I got up and sprinted faster than an Italian stallion who had been caught having sex with a man’s wife and sister at the same time. I followed the universal picture of loo, not male or female specific, just loo.
Behind door number one ladies and gentlemen? A little room, similar to one you see in the opening scene of Saw, only this one had a mustard-coloured liquid layering the floor. I’ll keep it in, I thought, feeling a little starting to trickle down my thigh. NO, I CANT! I MUST I MUST I MUST! And I did! And it was wonderful. The most horrendous stench of old Italian urine now blended with the fresh perfumed dilution of mine. Ah, to be young, desperate, willing and able!
PART 2
We got on the train, found an empty bunker and put my phone alarm on for 5.55am, with the train arriving at our station at 6am. Cuddling for warmth, we passed out, tired eyes and empty bladders, safe at last. A couple of hours into our quiet meditative slumber, a stinky, buffalo-shoe wearing, hair sprouting from weird moles, sweat-bathed man climbed into our bunker. He woke us up with very obvious gropes looking for a cuddle-snuggle on the midnight train. ‘No no no’, we both mumbled. His hands went up in the defensive ‘it-was-an-accident’ position. With every half-asleep push away, he would try again moments later. Just let us sleep Stinky Man! Stop it! STOP IT! *WHACK* Finally, he got the message as my friend elbowed him in his willy and we all fell asleep, hopefully with a little internal bleeding on his side.
In an exhausted daze, we woke up at a station in Rome just before 6am, but we thought we were going to the main one, Roma Termini and this certainly wasn’t it. We asked the Stinkman if the train was still going to Roma Termini and he replied, ‘Si Si Termini Si’ along with the hand motion of ‘next’ so we thought Oh it’s the next stop and stayed on the train in a delirious haze-state, waiting for the next stop. The next stop wasn’t it and nor was the one after and so we asked him again to which he said, ‘Si Si 8 o clock Roma Termini Si’. OHH, it arrives at Roma Termini at 8! I hesitated, slightly worried about missing our flight. My friend convinced me that the train obviously went AROUND the whole of Rome and then came back again and I was like, ‘Oh Ok’. Great, we can go back to sleep for a couple of hours instead of waiting in the ice-cold Italian morning. It’s a half an hour trip to the airport from Roma Termini and with our flight leaving at 12 noon. that works out perfectly! Great! Well done Stinky Man!
After a nap and some more attempted fondling from the Dodge, we woke up at quarter to 8. We got up and looked outside our bunker. Our eyes had to get used to the bright light. Our eyes also had to get used to the landscape. Things started looking a tad suspicious…rotting houses with smoke coming out of them, anorexic dogs and gross fly-swarmed mounds of litter covering dirt land. This was definitely NOT Rome.
After a minor panic and the #(%$^ idiot in our bunker now nodding, ‘Si Si Roma Termini 9 o clock Si’, we both dashed off in opposite directions looking for someone who spoke a sentence a little longer than SI SI ROMA TERMINI FUCKING SI! After knocking on windows and waking whole families, we were on the heart attack side of anxiety. Then a little Chinese girl who had watched our antics said, ‘Napoli Termini’!!! NAPOLI!! Isn’t that a type of PASTA!!!!! Oh my god, we’re about to arrive in Naples and are over 2 and a half hours away from our first 6am stop that was at the right station!
It was now 8.45 and we were about to arrive in Naples with no money and we were supposed to check in in an hour and a half!! We jumped off the train the second it stopped at 8.46 and by absolute fluke, at that instant, there was one going in the opposite direction leaving at….8.46 – we had 60 seconds to swap trains and get seated without having a chance to check if it was the right train. The conductor asked for our tickets, I gave him our last ones and threw an unbrushed toothy flirt-smile. Oh? This is not the right ticket? But we just bought it? We have no money? We’re pretty girls and have boobs? Oh, we can stay for free? Gracias!
With our sweet smiles and fake ignorance, we got away without paying the 30 euro each ticket. And somehow, they took another route which only took an hour and a half – but it still meant we arrived at Roma Termini at 11.20, leaving 40 minutes to travel a half an hour journey with ten minutes to find check-in, go through security and board! We jumped on the first available train and got away with not paying that ticket either, oh to be a female travelling is just not fair on menboys. We arrived at the airport after boarding time had ended; I had to ask a stranger to help with my dead-buffalo-heavy bag. The stranger’s name was Jesus. I said, ‘Oh thank god you’re back!’
We were outrightly refused to even check in; all the desks had closed centuries ago. We ran up and down, boobs jiggling, bags flinging, accidental farting and eventually, the man who had completely refuted gave in to our whinging minge, but it turned out 5 Arabic men had arrived late for the same flight and no one was going to say no to them. The guy who got us through? His name was Christian. Nice try! But I’m still an agnostic cynic. With a marathonesque finish, we got on the plane the minute it was supposed to take off.
We sat down, dripping with sweaty brows and underarms, thirsty for any form of alcohol, exhausted and hungry, but more relieved than after my Italian Crouching Wee experience. Still having learnt no more than ‘Si Si Roma Termini Si’, the Captain welcomed everyone in Italian. Moments later, a female with the English translation, ‘Hello and welcome and…the flight is delayed until further noticed.’
Obviously.
