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Go abroad just for the day

Completed on 11/29/2008

"Task: Go abroad for the day Location: Pisa, Italy Date: 29.11.08"

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This has easily been one of my favourite things to do from the list.
On a gloomy Saturday morning in November, I head off to have my hair cut. I always have it cut early as that leaves me with the rest of the day to do something with… and looking my best. It wasn’t quite a usual morning as on this occasion, amongst the usual keys, wallet, money and phone, there was my passport.
After my hair cut I casually walked to the bus stop to meet my friend Matt, in his pocket was also his passport. We boarded the bus with all the other passengers who all seemed to be carrying a lot more than us. We arrived at the airport and Matt and I sauntered in while everyone else struggled with their baggage. We got to the security desk and emptied our pockets while the man looked at us dubiously as we strolled through with no luggage. We sat and had breakfast and our first beer of the day.
Our flight would leave just after 2pm so we sat and relaxed with a newspaper and took in the sights of the airport while chatting merrily away. We took photographs, however this was quickly put to a stop by airport security who informer us it was against the rules. They asked why I was having my photo taken holding up a newspaper before they stood and looked at us like we were crazy after they heard our story. They laughed and joked with us and we sat back down and chatted until we were called up. The flight to Pisa takes just over 2 hours from East Midlands but it didn’t feel like it. We watched as people hastily crammed their bags into the overhead lockers and we sat there quite happily relaxing. As we got off the plane people struggled once again with their bags and we merrily marched through the airport to the bus terminal. We boarded the bus for the very short journey into Pisa. Still laughing at our lack of preparation we disembarked from the bus and started walking... the direction at this point didn’t matter. Eventually we had to decide what route to take and I chose left. As it turns out, it was a wise choice and we walked straight through the main town centre and appeared at the Leaning Tower. We attempted to have the typical tourist shot but it was quite frankly too dark at this point so we did our best and then went to find a bar. The town was dead and we found Pisa outside of tourist season to initially be quite an unwelcoming place. The first bar we drank in seemed to have us and a few locals in and they kept their eyes on us like hawks. We drank up and moved on to a little café on the main strip. We had another beer before deciding to move on. We had only jumped into these 2 places as shelter from a huge storm that passed over fairly quickly and with no change of clothes we had no option. We then eventually found an “American” style bar… again we were the only people in there and the music quickly changed from an Italian artist to Simply Red. Obviously the British influence mattered more than the fact we think Simply Red are awful. I poorly attempted to talk to the Italian waitress whose English was very poor and when I asked what the Italian for “I’m sorry, I’m an ignorant English pig” was, she smiled and politely said her English was very bad. It was a lot better than my Italian… as we were to find out after deciding on a pizzeria to eat in. We opened the menu, looked at each other and laughed… fortunately from our knowledge of pizzas we slowly translated back the entire menu, starting with four cheeses. After a delicious meal and laughing with an English couple about the fact they couldn’t speak Italian either we moved on. Of course being English… we always find the Irish bars. This trip would be no different… it was here that Matt tried out his Italian… to be greeted with “Is that 2 pints of Guiness please?” A great moment as this man would provide us with the place we would go to next. We laughed and joked as Bruce Springsteen came on the TV and we realised that the very attractive Italian girls on the table next to us were drinking apricot tea! We were in a pub, and someone was drinking tea! Anyway, we found that conveniently the Italian men were quite good at English and the women… not so good. We chatted with them for a bit before we headed across to the next destination. A small night club/late bar. Everything around this point is a bit hazy… I can tell you that we had an arm wrestling competition of Italy Vs England… England won 4-0, I can tell you that I was dancing on a chair with an Italian girl, who I kissed, but she then promptly fell off the chair… photo’s clearly indicate that being an English gentleman didn’t matter at this point… as I carried on dancing, an Italian man held me upside down for a photograph, I got a strange red stain on my jumper and I wore a mans hair band!
After the club/bar shut Matt and I decided that we should just walk back to the airport as it wasn’t that far. A couple of hours later we were stood in a muddy field near a motorway with no airport in sight. We slowly tramped across the field to a nearby hotel and asked the concierge to call us a taxi. He just pointed to some chairs and said “SIT”. The taxi rolled up and we went across to the airport… we’d walked the wrong way… a really wrong way. I don’t recall checking in. I do remember waking up in immense pain as I had stupidly attempted to sleep lying across the arms of the chairs. With alcohol still running through my body I walked bare foot across the waiting lounge and bought a drink, a tea towel and a notebook. All were obvious essentials for my last few Euro’s. We arrived back in England just before 11am… less than 24 hours after we left. We looked a mess and were still laughing in a slightly sleep deprived way. What a trip! I’d do it again and again.

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