Exchange Blog

I was in transit for over 48 hours. Melbourne, Sydney, Singapore, London, Rome, Bologna. I feel like someone whacked me over the back of a head with a stale panino and disoriented me. Come to think of it, I think someone on a bus did…

Hi, Ciao, How are you all?
Welcome to my exchange blog.

Let it be known from the outset that I am not the most reliable of travelers. I nearly left my passport and boarding passes on the plane from Sydney. I had to run back to the stewardesses who went back and retrieved it for me while the other waited and chatted to me,
“Wow so you’re off to Italy hey? You’re a lucky girl. Oh you’re studying at a university? You must be older than you look.”
“I am. Would you like to see my grey hair?”
The stewardess returned with the offending documents and, obviously deciding I was a 12 year old, began her rant,
“You are so lucky to be getting these back, you really should put these somewhere more careful, anyone could have come along and picked them up…”
One day I will get it right. One day I will go travelling, go on an adventure and not have to say I missed the flight home/I thought the flight was 2 days earlier than it was/ I lost my baggage/ I forgot my passport/ I threw up between aisles N/P of the Bangkok airport into a clear bin (last year, bit of a design fault if you ask me).

I arrived in London in the deathly Winter darkness at 5:30am. Or maybe it was pm? The sky looks the same either way. I allowed myself a few moments of nostalgic reminscence of the last time I was in Heathrow. I was coming back from my gap year and had missed the flight home (Evidently, 12pm is midday, not midnight). I started crying in front of the lady behind the desk and she regarded me with a look of pity that was laced with boredom and said “Lord honey, don’t start crying. Go and get yourself a drink.”

Unfortunately the only sightseeing I had time for in Rome was the McDonald’s at the train station. After 2 days of British airways packet eggs and reheated squirrel, McDonald’s was, somewhat ironically, the only place that I could order a salad. So I sat down at a table with my salad that came with 2* 25ml packets of olive oil and 3 sachets of salt. There was a couple sitting in front of me who would pick out a fry and start eating it from both ends until they kissed. Benvenuti to Rome, the city of love. I considered throwing my bread stick at them but decided it didn’t have enough weight behind it.

I arrived in Bologna in the late evening. It was raining. ‘Never mind’ I thought to myself, ‘it’s an adventure.’ I walked outside, went to pull my umbrella out of my back and the weight of my backpack tipped me backwards into a puddle. ‘It’s an adventure’ I reminded myself. Eventually I navigated my way to the street where my bus left from. I waited there half an hour and then the bus turned up and obligingly told me I was on the wrong side of the street (the bus driver that is, it wasn’t the bus itself that I spoke to). ‘An adventure’ I repeat. So I crosses the road, get the bus going the right way and get off at the stop that has a sign marking the hostel. I gets out, go and knock on the front door and one of the upstairs shutters flies open and a lady pokes her head out, “Who is it? What do you want-a?” she yells down to me (Obviously that’s the closest I can get to speaking Italian and still being understood by the majority of readers).
“Is this the hostel?” I shout, stupidly. It so clearly is not.
“No! Over there across the road, the big one…”
‘Adventure, adventure, adventure’ I repeat like a mantra as I trudge through the darkness.

Despite my best efforts, I haven’t been able to find out when university starts. Whenever I ask some-one they inadvertently reply “umm, some time in February…” I feel like saying “Look, don’t tell me if it’s a secret.” I did get an introductory letter though wishing me a fruitful stay. I hope it will be a fruitful. And vegetableful. And exerciseful too because all pasta and no play makes Jack a fat boy.

Ciao ciao