After two weekends of frantic activity, followed by a birthday that was by turns wonderful and the very depths of misery, I was faced with the prospect of 3 days alone in Bra over the June bank holiday.
Lesser men would have crumbled. I headed south, in search of sun, booze and hedonism.
Rimini holds a special place in the Italian psyche. Much as Ibiza promises Brits frantic humping and cheap drugs, or the Baltic coast lures Germans with regimented sunloungers and efficient sausage service, so Rimini represents to Italians the very apex of sitting in street cafes quaffing latte, tight D & G t-shirts, and flouncing effeminatly by the sea.
The train from Porta Nouva was an 'Intercity', which means it costs twice as much, is fractionally quicker than a Regionale and some cockend is guarenteed to turn up an hour into your journey and demand 'their' seat. So I wedged myself into a sqaure of sunlight in the vestibule behind the engine and settled down for 4 hours of gentle slumber. This was disturbed when, lets call him 'Enrique', got on at Bologna, and ran over my hand with his wheeled suitcase. He was going to Rimini for the season he said, to work in an aubergine (he may have meant hotel, my Italian is not strong, and his English stretched to 'hello'). He was eager and fresh faced, just out of school, 18, never left Rome before. I did my part, flying the flag for Britain by grumpily reading my book and occasionally kicking the offending luggage that had invaded my sunny hidey-hole.
Bob's Jammin' Party Hostel (perhaps THE premier reggae themed hostel in all of Italy) was two blocks from the beach, remarkably clean, well stocked with hot water (despite my usual tank emptying prowess, I was defeated here) and inhabited by freaks. The pick of whom, the Number One Breakdancing Crew in Croatia, spent most of the evening tossing a frizbee up and down the street, catching it with a series of bone defying moves and deftly firing it back to another of their cohort, who would try to top them. We ended up drunk, on the beach, late that night, having 'Shot the Strip'. They were a good contrast to the tribes of miserable Germans, laconic Italians and pissed Brits who roamed between the strip-clubs; the standout being a loud Northern monkey, stood on a concrete bollard outside 'Dave's Bar' shouting "What can I say, she FOOKIN' wanted me mate, she's got FOOKIN' good taste, waaaahayyyy!" to anyone in ear shot.
So Rimini is wonderful; Blackpool by the Adriatic, with all the piss, kebabs, sex shows, happy hours and angry Northerners you'd expect. It's not very Italian, and I think that's why they flock there. You can't be cool all the time, after all.
Sunday 8 June 2008
Carbon Footprint
As an irredeemably middle class, lefty, Guardian reading, organic humous eating ponce I tacitly 'care' about my carbon footprint.
Until this year, I hadn't flown for 3 years and revelled in it, not as a sign of bitter student poverty, but as a faintly holier-than-thou stick with which to beat others. "Well, of course, I take holidays in Britain" I would say, neglecting to mention my previous globe hopping, petulant girlfriend who steadfastly refused to run off to Rome with me, or long list of places I would be flying to the instant I had any spare cash.
This year, I've taken 9 short haul flights already, with at least 3 more, plus two trans-atlantic, before the end of July. I think it's fair to say I've done more than my share of fucking up the globe. But, with yet another ominous report in today's Observer saying, and I paraphrase, "We're never going to hit a target of a 2 degree rise in global temperatures, it'll be more like 4.8, and frankly that's a bit conservative, but that's no reason to stop trying", there's a strong temptation to think "fuck the next generation, let's enjoy the end of days now, before fuel costs more than gold and we're all eating Soylent Green in eco-highrises on top of Yorkshire fells".
I've re-discovered my love of solo travel. The opertunity to be alone with your thoughts, the endless parade of the dispossed, the idealistic and the downright fruitloop you meet, a different hostel every night, a new country every few days, drinking alone, writing in a notebook, and not giving a shit who stares at you. It's a wonderful thing, and I don't know why it scares so many people. Paul Theroux (a man whose curiosity is matched only by his boundless grumpiness) describes it as a "masochistic pleasure" that draws writers because they're at heart solitary, introspective and antisocial creatures.
I can't say I disagree, and who doesn't like a little masochism, now and again.
And, as a coda to that, I've got 18 days left in Bra (which will be a hellish death march) then it's back out into the unknown. I have no idea what will happen this year, or where the hell I'll be next June, but for the first time in year's I'm excited about the future. I don't know what's going to happen, whether wonderful things will work out, or if I'll end up toasting a lonely new year in some remote outpost, but it's going to be fun finding out.
Until this year, I hadn't flown for 3 years and revelled in it, not as a sign of bitter student poverty, but as a faintly holier-than-thou stick with which to beat others. "Well, of course, I take holidays in Britain" I would say, neglecting to mention my previous globe hopping, petulant girlfriend who steadfastly refused to run off to Rome with me, or long list of places I would be flying to the instant I had any spare cash.
This year, I've taken 9 short haul flights already, with at least 3 more, plus two trans-atlantic, before the end of July. I think it's fair to say I've done more than my share of fucking up the globe. But, with yet another ominous report in today's Observer saying, and I paraphrase, "We're never going to hit a target of a 2 degree rise in global temperatures, it'll be more like 4.8, and frankly that's a bit conservative, but that's no reason to stop trying", there's a strong temptation to think "fuck the next generation, let's enjoy the end of days now, before fuel costs more than gold and we're all eating Soylent Green in eco-highrises on top of Yorkshire fells".
I've re-discovered my love of solo travel. The opertunity to be alone with your thoughts, the endless parade of the dispossed, the idealistic and the downright fruitloop you meet, a different hostel every night, a new country every few days, drinking alone, writing in a notebook, and not giving a shit who stares at you. It's a wonderful thing, and I don't know why it scares so many people. Paul Theroux (a man whose curiosity is matched only by his boundless grumpiness) describes it as a "masochistic pleasure" that draws writers because they're at heart solitary, introspective and antisocial creatures.
I can't say I disagree, and who doesn't like a little masochism, now and again.
And, as a coda to that, I've got 18 days left in Bra (which will be a hellish death march) then it's back out into the unknown. I have no idea what will happen this year, or where the hell I'll be next June, but for the first time in year's I'm excited about the future. I don't know what's going to happen, whether wonderful things will work out, or if I'll end up toasting a lonely new year in some remote outpost, but it's going to be fun finding out.
Nice
"The 23.30 to Nice... uhhhh... where is it?"
"No trains, the French" he looks disgusted at the very thought of them, "They strike".
I jog back up the platform. "Yeah, we're fucked" I shout brightly to the petulantly waiting American "The French are on strike, as usual". We turn and begin our trudge toward the taxi rank and the cabbies rubbing their hands with glee. On the way out we're assailed by a large swarm of indeterminated oriental origin:
"What he say?"
"No trains to France tonight... or tomorrow, maybe you can find a bus, where are you going?"
"A bus" she gives me a look usually reserved for something unpleasant you've stepped in "Where are we going to find a bus at midnight?"
"I dunno, bus station?" I reply, helpfully.
"We're going to Barcelona, we have a SCHEDULE, we can't be late"
"Well, if it's any consolation" I smile, one foot in the waiting taxi "The strike is only in the Cote D'Azur, if you can get through to Marsailles, you're laughing"
"And how far is Marsailles?", incredulous, unsmiling.
"Oh, about 120 miles, good luck" I wave cheerily and slam the door. Fuck 'em, don't shoot the messenger.
The drive from Ventimilia on the Italian border to Nice is one of those twisty, turny James Bond style affairs, whipping along elevated highways and barrelling through mountain tunnels. It's also unrelentingly awful, 50 miles of eye-fucking development clinging to the hillsides like whitewashed concrete turds. Scraggy beaches, seedy casinos, Yanky truckstops and an overdose of Botox; whatever charm the Riviera used to have has long since died and been buried under yet another 4 lane. Imagine Long Beach, California, but Francophone; frankly Dante had nothing on this.
On the way I discover two of my travelling companions are from Maryland, studying in Spain and over in Nice for a holiday. The other, a silent French girl, huddles in the back row (a 7 seat Taxi and you can only take 4 of us to Nice, eh, you greedy motherfucker?) and says nothing.
We arrive at Nice Ville station ("Le railway station" gestures the cabbie, "Oui, le gare de SNCF" I reply, no way are you out languaging me you patronising Italian bastard), bathed in the red neon glow of an enourmous sign promising 'SEX' in huge letters across the street. I get out and stand in the midnight crowd of shady immigrants, dealers and pimps. Remarkably, I instantly fail to fit in and am offered 'girl' and 'something nice' the instant I put my bag down. A wizened Moroccan approaches and askes for a cigarette. As I obliged his stubby fingers reach out and start clawing for more from my pack. "Non, non" I say, waving him away "Fuck you" he replies, and slopes off to a dark corner.
I'm silently cursing this humid, garlic scented, wine quaffing country when Abs appears on my left. "Ahhhh, bonsoir mon ami, ceva?" I say, pretentiously. Despite both having As at GCSE french, this is our total mastery of the langauge. We walk back to Sam's flat (his ginger, Scottish friend, who failed utterly to tan in the 6 months he spent here), a reassuringly cliche affair just up from the beach, complete with window shutters, billowing white curtains and a rickety bike propped up in the hallway.
The next day is breakfast at the station (though Abs refuses any food, on the basis that it cuts down on schmoozing time), followed by a rammed train down the coast to Cannes (during which Abs ingratiates himself to two French ladies, and I loudly teach him the word 'Putain' which causes a bit of Gallic consternation).
Cannes at Festival time is much like Edinburgh. The streets are crowded with people from all over the world, most of whom have some form of dubious accreditation slung round their necks in a doomed attempt to seem important (ourselves included). A one armed chap asks Abs for a fag, and graces us with the now standard "fuck you" when we politely decline. But I'm more mellow than I was the previous night, and send him on his way with a cheery "vous etes un putain!", doing my part to foster a greater European understanding.
The weekend becomes a blur of surreal vignettes after that, as Abs roamed the strip relentless promoting his film, and I pursued my ambition of getting as drunk as possible on complimentary booze. The Turks offered strong coffee and cold beer (thanks, Turkish Culture Ministry), the Thai hut presented us with a peculair buffet comprising mainly jellied coconut, beer and the Thai ambassador (he'd been in Paris for two months, and found everything tremendously exciting). There was a lovely moment when, checking our emails in The Majestic, a rush of "Oh my God, it's Jackie Chan" brought Mylene Klass 'n' sproglet racing to the window next to us, along with her CNN film crew, all clearly star struck to see a real celebrity for a change (as an aside, she's much shorter than you'd expect, and wouldn't look out of place on the dancefloor of some WKD 'n' vomit themed club somewhere in the Midlands).
All too soon, the weekend was over, and I was racing out of Cannes station on the way back to Italy. I'd taken the same journey just two weeks before (after it turned out that flying Glasgow, Stansted, Nice then sitting on a train for 4 hours cost half as much as flying to Turin), and the leg from Nice through the Alps to Cuneo is one of those journeys that anyone with even a passing interest in train travel should take at least once in their lives. The modern SNCF takes you on a gently winding single track up into the foothills, through sunny alpine meadows and past great Medieval villages perched high on rocky promantaries, their ancient walls one small earthquake away from total destruction. At Col de Braus a breath-takingly gorgeous French woman got on, wearing grass-stained jodphurs and smelling of horse, and sat across the eisle from me. "How wonderful it must be to ride through these sunny meadows" I thought, then instantly questioned my sexuality. Two weeks before, at Breil-sur-Roya (a tiny village high in the alps, surrounded on all sides by brooding mountains), I'd got talking to an elderly American in the cafe while waiting for the rattly rail-car on to Italy. His daughter was working in Nice, and he was taking the oppertunity to ride the trains all over the alps. "American? You're in the wrong country mate". He smiled, and I ran for my train.
The transition from French train to Italian is a stark reminder of the difference between the countries. The French one is sedate, clean and modern, the Italian ancient, dirty, crowded and charges recklessly along the exposed clifftops like a beast possessed. At Cuneo the ticket machine was broken, so I bought a hasitly scribbled piece of paper from the guard, as the driver looked at me with amusement from his cab (I should point out we were hurtling along toward Turin at this point, and every fiber of my being wanted to scream "WATCH THE RAILS YOU LACONIC BASTARD" as I peered over his shoulder).
Bra was, as always, unchanged when I got back. Dark, slumbering, lightly industrial and utterly uninteresting. I looked back up the line as I crossed the tracks, and thought of the festival still in full swing just 100km away down on that awful coast. One way or another, I was sure I'd be back one day.
"No trains, the French" he looks disgusted at the very thought of them, "They strike".
I jog back up the platform. "Yeah, we're fucked" I shout brightly to the petulantly waiting American "The French are on strike, as usual". We turn and begin our trudge toward the taxi rank and the cabbies rubbing their hands with glee. On the way out we're assailed by a large swarm of indeterminated oriental origin:
"What he say?"
"No trains to France tonight... or tomorrow, maybe you can find a bus, where are you going?"
"A bus" she gives me a look usually reserved for something unpleasant you've stepped in "Where are we going to find a bus at midnight?"
"I dunno, bus station?" I reply, helpfully.
"We're going to Barcelona, we have a SCHEDULE, we can't be late"
"Well, if it's any consolation" I smile, one foot in the waiting taxi "The strike is only in the Cote D'Azur, if you can get through to Marsailles, you're laughing"
"And how far is Marsailles?", incredulous, unsmiling.
"Oh, about 120 miles, good luck" I wave cheerily and slam the door. Fuck 'em, don't shoot the messenger.
The drive from Ventimilia on the Italian border to Nice is one of those twisty, turny James Bond style affairs, whipping along elevated highways and barrelling through mountain tunnels. It's also unrelentingly awful, 50 miles of eye-fucking development clinging to the hillsides like whitewashed concrete turds. Scraggy beaches, seedy casinos, Yanky truckstops and an overdose of Botox; whatever charm the Riviera used to have has long since died and been buried under yet another 4 lane. Imagine Long Beach, California, but Francophone; frankly Dante had nothing on this.
On the way I discover two of my travelling companions are from Maryland, studying in Spain and over in Nice for a holiday. The other, a silent French girl, huddles in the back row (a 7 seat Taxi and you can only take 4 of us to Nice, eh, you greedy motherfucker?) and says nothing.
We arrive at Nice Ville station ("Le railway station" gestures the cabbie, "Oui, le gare de SNCF" I reply, no way are you out languaging me you patronising Italian bastard), bathed in the red neon glow of an enourmous sign promising 'SEX' in huge letters across the street. I get out and stand in the midnight crowd of shady immigrants, dealers and pimps. Remarkably, I instantly fail to fit in and am offered 'girl' and 'something nice' the instant I put my bag down. A wizened Moroccan approaches and askes for a cigarette. As I obliged his stubby fingers reach out and start clawing for more from my pack. "Non, non" I say, waving him away "Fuck you" he replies, and slopes off to a dark corner.
I'm silently cursing this humid, garlic scented, wine quaffing country when Abs appears on my left. "Ahhhh, bonsoir mon ami, ceva?" I say, pretentiously. Despite both having As at GCSE french, this is our total mastery of the langauge. We walk back to Sam's flat (his ginger, Scottish friend, who failed utterly to tan in the 6 months he spent here), a reassuringly cliche affair just up from the beach, complete with window shutters, billowing white curtains and a rickety bike propped up in the hallway.
The next day is breakfast at the station (though Abs refuses any food, on the basis that it cuts down on schmoozing time), followed by a rammed train down the coast to Cannes (during which Abs ingratiates himself to two French ladies, and I loudly teach him the word 'Putain' which causes a bit of Gallic consternation).
Cannes at Festival time is much like Edinburgh. The streets are crowded with people from all over the world, most of whom have some form of dubious accreditation slung round their necks in a doomed attempt to seem important (ourselves included). A one armed chap asks Abs for a fag, and graces us with the now standard "fuck you" when we politely decline. But I'm more mellow than I was the previous night, and send him on his way with a cheery "vous etes un putain!", doing my part to foster a greater European understanding.
The weekend becomes a blur of surreal vignettes after that, as Abs roamed the strip relentless promoting his film, and I pursued my ambition of getting as drunk as possible on complimentary booze. The Turks offered strong coffee and cold beer (thanks, Turkish Culture Ministry), the Thai hut presented us with a peculair buffet comprising mainly jellied coconut, beer and the Thai ambassador (he'd been in Paris for two months, and found everything tremendously exciting). There was a lovely moment when, checking our emails in The Majestic, a rush of "Oh my God, it's Jackie Chan" brought Mylene Klass 'n' sproglet racing to the window next to us, along with her CNN film crew, all clearly star struck to see a real celebrity for a change (as an aside, she's much shorter than you'd expect, and wouldn't look out of place
All too soon, the weekend was over, and I was racing out of Cannes station on the way back to Italy. I'd taken the same journey just two weeks before (after it turned out that flying Glasgow, Stansted, Nice then sitting on a train for 4 hours cost half as much as flying to Turin), and the leg from Nice through the Alps to Cuneo is one of those journeys that anyone with even a passing interest in train travel should take at least once in their lives. The modern SNCF takes you on a gently winding single track up into the foothills, through sunny alpine meadows and past great Medieval villages perched high on rocky promantaries, their ancient walls one small earthquake away from total destruction. At Col de Braus a breath-takingly gorgeous French woman got on, wearing grass-stained jodphurs and smelling of horse, and sat across the eisle from me. "How wonderful it must be to ride through these sunny meadows" I thought, then instantly questioned my sexuality. Two weeks before, at Breil-sur-Roya (a tiny village high in the alps, surrounded on all sides by brooding mountains), I'd got talking to an elderly American in the cafe while waiting for the rattly rail-car on to Italy. His daughter was working in Nice, and he was taking the oppertunity to ride the trains all over the alps. "American? You're in the wrong country mate". He smiled, and I ran for my train.
The transition from French train to Italian is a stark reminder of the difference between the countries. The French one is sedate, clean and modern, the Italian ancient, dirty, crowded and charges recklessly along the exposed clifftops like a beast possessed. At Cuneo the ticket machine was broken, so I bought a hasitly scribbled piece of paper from the guard, as the driver looked at me with amusement from his cab (I should point out we were hurtling along toward Turin at this point, and every fiber of my being wanted to scream "WATCH THE RAILS YOU LACONIC BASTARD" as I peered over his shoulder).
Bra was, as always, unchanged when I got back. Dark, slumbering, lightly industrial and utterly uninteresting. I looked back up the line as I crossed the tracks, and thought of the festival still in full swing just 100km away down on that awful coast. One way or another, I was sure I'd be back one day.
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