A P.I.A. Story

Unexpectedly enough, I managed to finish all my first year exams on time this semester – YUPPIES – and therefore I and all those who know me expected me to have the most wonderful holidays a university student could ever fish for.

Guess what.

I didn’t.

Now, you could argue that expectations most of the times exceed reality, and it is therefore quite in the norm that I should be somehow disappointed, BUT, really, none ever could have guessed how very far from my idle dreams my holidays went.

To be fair, the first two weeks haven’t been that bad, I mean, they were actually pretty good! Chilling on the couch, watching HP movies, reading, hanging out with old friends, drinking, drinking again, drinking again and again, puking on my room floor… ok, I may have gone too far.

Anyway, you got the point.

But then, the last week came in.

Before I explain anything else though, there’s something you guys should know to completely understand my frustration.

Previously on “Alex’s life”

One of my best friends, whom we’ll call A. – no, not THAT A. – has been living in London this past year, and is now moving to Portsmouth to study. As you guys can guess, living in two different countries kind of limits the chances to spend our time together, which is usually confined to a few days during summer or winter holidays.

We, of course, are much aware of this, and therefore we usually start planning our holidays pretty early – as early as May, which means that we had more or less everything set by the end of June.

So, what’s the big deal?

Here it comes.

During the year, A. eventually met this girl, whom from now on we’ll call Pia – standing for Pain In the Ass. One beautiful day, after having spent more or less 4 days in a year together, Pia sent, out of nowhere, a much more beautiful message to A., basically saying that she had bought a flight ticket for Italy on August 13, the return set for August 27. That is, she’d be staying at A.’s for a good fortnight. EXACTLY the period we had intended to spend together.

And that’s when things started collapsing, for although A. had planned to go back to England a bit later than the 27^th, she now had to go back that very day, for she couldn’t obviously – at least for us, can’t really say the same for Pia – ask her parents to drive twice in a week to the airport and back (400 km at time). Not a big problem, wasn’t it for the ticket price: around 300£ for a one-way flight. Insert favourite curse word here.

And now that you know the prequel of this madness, let’s move on the rest of it.

All our previous plans been cast away, we tried to make the best of it, although there were some requests made by our beloved Pia, which we could hardly attend i.e. travel around Italy not spending a single penny. Like, sure, that’s like asking to swim from France to New York and not getting wet. What a smart girl.

Anyways, the final plan was that she’d be spending a couple of days at A.’s and I’d join them on the third, then we’d be heading to Rome, in which we’d spend a couple of days, afterwards we’d have a day off al A.’s again and finally 3 days at a camping site on the beach. After this, there’d be only a couple of days for A. to pack everything she needed and head back to the UK. 

A lovely plan, which would suit everyone, wasn’t it?

So, the 13^th finally arrived, and Pia and all her nonsense came with it.

First of all, she’d stuck in A’s room, more precisely on her sister’s bed - who was forced to leave the house during her staying – and would come out only when called for lunch or dinner, which she wouldn’t eat anyways because she apparently doesn’t like anything but Pan di Stelle (for non-Italians: cookies). For non-Italians again: it’s a really great offence if you, as a guest, refuse ANYTHING your friend’s mamma made just for you. Then, as A,’s cousins joined them for dinner and guess what? When they asked her and A. to get out and have fun together she just complained and decided she would stay home instead. Her reason? They were speaking in Italian with A.

I mean, really, she amazed me with her intelligence.

Anyways, things just got worse once in Rome, she wouldn’t talk to us at all during the whole day, and started crying once at the B&B because she felt left apart – that after my many attempts to involve her in anything we said and did. Still, she cried, A. explained herself, they talked it out and things just seemed to start getting better.

How very wrong I was.

The days after were just the same, if not even worse, especially once back at A.’s – her mum was in such a discomfort that she had to leave the house and wouldn’t come back before 1 am because of Pia’s behaviour. Seriously, the situation was just MENTAL, and it just continued at the camping.

Let’s talk a little about it, shall we? We had just spent money - money we were saving for something else – on something which we weren’t really looking forward to, but we did to make her happy, and you know what? In three days she only swam once, for more or less 10 minutes: the rest of the time she would only text or read. Especially the last day, which she spent entirely in the tent, my tent.

 I don’t know how you’d react, but I got mad, like, it’s been long since the last time I got so pissed off.

I still can't figure out how she managed to piss that much off probably the only two people in the whole country who could best understand her difficulties in living abroad on virtually her own - even though in this case we're talking about just a fortnight and NOT an entire year, as both me and A. did at our time. Still, she did.

Of course we once more told her what the problem was, she said she understood and was sorry about it all, but I’m sure she didn’t really get it at all. Why so? Well, the day after, and those after i, it was all the same again.

Plus, on the way to the airport, the27^th, she just kept puking all over A,’s dad’s car.

What else can I say? Majestic.