Day One
It's funny, normally when I’m in an airport I
have this horrible, unearthly feeling that I'm going to die. My tummy turns
over every thirty seconds, particularly when I hear the sound of a jet taking
off overhead, and if I should happen to see the tail end of any of the 757's
I'm likely to break out in the cold sweat of fear.
But today, I don't feel any of that. In fact
I am the epitome of calm as I sip a freshly pulled pint of peroni and test Andy
on his language skills. I think it's because I'm not thinking about flying
today, I'm just thinking about going back to Italy.
Our journey is smooth and efficient. We have
hardly any turbulence, arrive a good thirty minutes early and are the first off
the plane, onto the little airport bus and first into the car rental queue.
If only the next twelve hours were so easy!!
One thing we have learned in our first two
years of marriage is that I should not book anything. When I do, something
always seems to go horribly wrong and this was one of those occasions. In my defence,
I’ve never booked a car rental before so I didn't know the exact requirements.
It's fairly simple enough - you just need a credit card - but when we arrived
at the airport without one and they wouldn't take cash, we were well and truly
stuck. For over an hour we tried everything we could think of but the final
solution was that we needed to contact the brokers who had sold us our rental
agreement.
Who opened at 9am UK time.
But it was only 11pm Italian time.
Despite our tiredness and frustration, we did
not have a huge argument in front of the Italian receptionist and calmly found
a hotel to spend the night in Pisa. There are some things that happen for a
reason and this seemed like one of those times. It was a little more expense,
and would cost us one morning of waking up in our pretty little cottage that
was waiting for us in the Siena province, but sleep was almost upon us and any
bed at that point would be welcome.
Besides, an adventure always gives you
something to talk about and an opportunity to practice your Italian!
Our hotel was in the heart of Pisa, the
cheapest we could find that was still taking calls at close to midnight. We
grabbed a taxi and, completely disorientated, ended up outside a fairly shabby
but quaint building five minutes and ten euros later. The hotel manager, with
barely any English, showed us to an apartment around the corner from the hotel
reception. The first thing I saw were the bunk beds, and being of a larger size
with a clumsy decorum, silently prayed that there would be another room with a double
bed otherwise Andy risked being thrown from the top bunk on every turn I made!
Thankfully, the room did have a double bed,
and an extra single next to it, all cramped together behind the kitchen counter
with sparse looking sheets and pillows and very little furniture. Desperate for
sleep, I crawled into bed as soon as the front door closed, grateful for the
air conditioning whirring into life at full speed and the chance to stretch out
on a cool sheet.
Andy was to lay awake worrying for most of
the night but I managed to sleep like a log until 10am local time, when the
call centres would be finally open in England and we could hopefully begin to
enjoy our Italian holiday.
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