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 27th,
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 13th 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, the27th, she just kept puking all over A,’s dad’s car.
What else can I say? Majestic.
