Low-cost midlife crisis

We were all Sori to say goodbye to our Italian getaway, but the tickets will expire soon and some of us need to get back to work. So, reluctantly we walked up to Sori station, and got on the first train of a long and slightly foolish trek across the continent that we expect to take about 40 hours in total.

Started with the shortish half hour trip to Genova main station, before the next leg to Milan. It turns out that we should have bought some food and drink in Genoa as we had some time and there were options. We assumed, however, that we’d have the opportunity in Milan. Unfortunately, our connection was not in the immense and monumental Centrale station or even the smaller Piazza Garibaldi, but instead at somewhere called Lembrate. Lembrate, it turns out is not the kind of station that has food outlets on a Saturday evening, nor is it the kind of station that has any shops nearby. I’m going to speculate that I could probably have bought some drugs there if I’d wanted, but food and drink were limited to some vending machines. And guess what… as well as crisps and chocolate the only thing available was bloody tramezzini. Our last meal in Italy was to be tramezzini or nothing. This feels like a crime. I’m still traumatised a day later.

Despite the tramezzini trauma I’ll miss Italy and even its trains – nearly every single one of which was about 10-15 minutes late. Without fail. Though this of course was a great improvement on our experience in the UK on this trip, balloons and all. Plus I’ll miss the regular announcement reminding us to wear our effayeffaypeeduay masks.

Our train from Milan was to Vienna. I was slightly troubled that we’d probably miss out on some great scenery but needs must. Pulling an all nighter to get all the way to Vienna was worth it. Sadly we couldn’t get sleeper places but we did have one of those compartments for 6 that “only” had the 5 of us in it. I remembered back in my youth some of these type of compartments allow you to pull the seats across creating a sort of large bed. This Was was one of those types. So we (as much as possible) settled in for the night.

*I wanted to title this post “Sori seems to be the hardest word” but I couldn’t really make it work. While I am here though I would like to mention that song, which to you may be a nice song or a saccharin piece of crap depending on your tolerance for Elton John. I would like to tell you that this song took on a new, powerful poignancy when I heard it sung by Palestinian students on the roof of the dorm building at the University I worked at in the West Bank. It, I have to tell you, broke my heart – especially because at least at that time, nearly 20 years ago now, the euphemism that Palestinians used to refer to the brutal appalling racist occupation that they lived under was “The Situation“. Hearing them then sing “It’s sad, so sad, it’s a sad sad situation, and it’s getting more and more absurd” cut me to the core. Elton could not have known how powerful those words would be, but they really were. This little aside has absolutely nothing to do with this blog, but those who know me know that my anger and loathing at the apartheid practised by Israel on the Palestinians knows no end. I will continue to do everything I can to work to end this appalling situation, including fully supporting the BDS movement. And I urge you to to do the same. Apartheid must be opposed.

Thank you for listening.