Day 19 - The trip to La Spezia

Well I can certainly tell you people weren't half as happy this morning as they were last night. We headed to the breakfast room for a quick bite before heading to the Rome Termini train station. After the celebrations and goodbyes we gave out last night, this morning you only got a mere nod from the people you met on the tour. I think we were all goodbyed out. So we ended up sitting at the table with Salt and Pepper, who again, immediately started screaming for salt and pepper to go with their breakfast, whilst I immediately ordered 2 espressos. Now in Italy, when you order a "cafe", that is interpreted as "espresso". So when I asked for "2 cafes", th waitress looked at me wide eyed and said "Did you want Americano?", which is basically the dirty water called filtered coffee. I said "No, I want 2 espressos". Her eyes go even wider and she starts nodding and smiling like I just gave her $5000. I guess in a touristy hotel, its soul destroying for her to keep serving filtered coffee to the Americans. So when I asked for an authentic coffee, she was delighted!

We finished up breakfast and gave a half hearted wave of goodbye to the tour group (God how things change overnight) and headed back to our room to grab our suitcases. As we headed into the lobby, we bumped into Cabbage Patch. Usually she's always bright and cheery in the morning, this morning, she gave us a growl of a greeting and turned her back to us. Looks like she wasn't a happy chap from the tips she got last night. I don't blame her, Clawfeet started screaming that she didn't want to give a tip and claimed that poor Umberto was useless. The poor guy had to clean and wash the bus every single day and drive you all around Italy AND lug all your suitcases around only to get called "useless" and not receive a dollar of a tip from them. Some people.

For the first time in 2 weeks, we had to drag all our luggage ourselves to the front lobby (I miss Umberto already!) where we booked a taxi to the train station. We asked the guy how much the taxi should cost, and he said around 20euros. So he picks up the phone and calls the taxi company. Next thing you know, he turns to us and says "Your taxi is 80". We both screamed "80euros?!?!?!". He practically jumped backwards from our yelling before clarifying the taxi NUMBER is 80.

The taxi was TINY. It was one of those smart cars which barely fit us in, let alone our luggage. We squeeze into the taxi where we're taken around and around the narrow side streets, before we went through Piazza Del Popolo. I immediately lunged for the map in my bag thinking the guy was taking us for a ride, well he wasn't apparently. We got to Rome Termini station pretty quickly after that where we struggle with our luggage before stealing a trolley. God I miss Umberto!! We wheel our stuff around the station trying to find out where our train is going to depart, we're so early we're not even on the board yet. It doesn't help that the board isn't updated in real time! We stand on a corner and literally stare at the board until our train number comes up, but there is no platform number. We thought we should grab a few sandwiches from the local cafes for lunch on the train. This turned into a massive mission where we went around and around and around all the different bars and cafes to buy a friggin sandwich. 1/2hr later, we finally chose our sandwiches when we realised we needed water. I dumped Moishii with the luggage and ran across the street to search for a supermarket, only to find a bar which the most delicious looking sandwiches less than 20m from where we were standing before! GAAAAH!!! I grab the water and head back to the train station when we noticed that our train is delayed. Oh boy....this is going to be one of those days. I can feel it now.

I spotted a bag shop when we were roaming about and wanted to go in and have a look. So here I am, standing in the shop and casually browsing the bags. I take a bag off the shelf and I'm opening the pockets etc, when one of the guys who worked in the shop came over to put a bag onto the shelf. Next thing you know, half of the bags tumble off the shelf onto me causing me to scream in panic! Seriously, ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS LOOK AT BAGS!!!!!!!!!! *Sigh*

I did end up buying a bag, which is probably my first real purchase in Italy. I mean I've been buying a lot of books and postcards plus some jewellery in Venice, but thats about it. So happy with my purchase, we walked out of the shop to find out that we finally have a platform number! Yay! We plant ourselves on the platform, not knowing how the train pulls into the station, and which carriage we should be boarding. When the train finally arrives, we realised our carriage was at the other end of the platform. We start rushing with the crowd to get to the train, but Moishii was no match for the Italians. I screamed for him to stop. I then walked infront of him and started shoving people out of the way and clearing the road for him. Much better. Within a minute, we're at our train carriage. Its then a big mission of getting our 4 pieces of luggage up the stairs and onto the train. We then wrestled our luggage down the very narrow walk way to the cabin our seats are in. The minute I get to the door of the cabin, I stop dead in my tracks. Not only were there already 4 people sitting in the carriage, but ALL the luggage racks have been taken up by their luggage. And here I am standing there with 4 pieces of luggage. Moishii was wondering why I was shellshocked until he looked inside. Oh boy. This can't be good. I grabbed our small hand carry and dump them on our seats (by the window, meaning I had to climb over 4 people). We then managed to squeeze Moishii's small suitcase into the overhead racks, but now we're stuck with 2 full size suitcases. The whole time this is happening, the 4 people in the cabin refused to get up. They just sat there and watched us. It wasn't until we lifted my massive suitcase into the cabin that one of them jumped up to move her bag to give us a bit of room. Even then, it was the 2 of us shifting the massive bags already on the rack around. And even when we lifted the suitcase above our heads to shove it onto the overhead racks, no one bothered to help. Hello? My suitcase is around 30kg!!! FFS! Once we got my suitcase on the racks (Which is much smaller than Moishii's, we were sweating and exhausted. We decided to just shove the suitcase on the floor between the both of us for the rest of the journey (Which is about 4.5hrs).

This was awkward. The whole cabin just sat there watching us for awhile after the massive fuss we caused, and here we were, squashed like sardines in a can. I mean, I have short legs as it is, and I practically had my knees up to my chin just to be able to sit. 10mins into the ride, I was getting pins and needles already.

Racks of luggage above our heads

My short legs had me crushed up against the suitcase

We were trapped in our seats most of the time!

We alternated who would have to have their legs up and who could stretch out. After awhile, when we had finally settled down, half of the cabin had fallen asleep. Now, before we had even booked our train tickets back in May, we went through argument after argument as to what is the best way to get from Rome to Cinque Terre. Train was the most obvious answer, but apparently our friend Josh was catching the train once and got gassed. When he woke up, all his money and passport went missing. This had me in an absolute panic. I stayed up a few nights freaking about this. So when we booked our tickets, I said I wanted the economy class tickets, instead of first class tickets. Not because of price, but because economy seats tend to be really crap, unlike the soft cushiony seats of first class. So why did I choose economy knowing this fact? I didn't want us falling sleep and getting gassed and robbed! We even discussed that I should pull out my Evian hydrating face spray and keep spraying myself to the other people would think we were trying to Gas them and stay away from us. So everytime we yawned on the train, the other one would give the "DON'T FALL ASLEEP LOOK!!" and try to keep the other awake.

We ended up getting up and walking around the outside of the cabins to stay awake. However, going at the speeds we were going and staring out at the windows was giving us motion sickness so we went back into the cramped cabin instead. With nothing to do, I pulled out the sandwiches and handed on to Moishii and the both of us started eating. Next thing you know, everyone in the cabin started eating. We started a feeding frezy! haha About 3hours into the trip, and multiple stops at various train stations, I started getting worried. The train conductor has stopped announcing what station we're stopping at. We asked the old lady that was sitting in the same cabin as us as to how many stops before it gets to La Spezia, our stop. She starts ranting and raving in Italian, but we managed to hear that it'll be atleast 6-7 stops before La Spezia. We sit in the cabin and suddenly she starts talking to her daughter at an insane speed who then spoke Italian to the other people in the carriage before declaring we had about 7-8 stops before we get to La Spezia. Excellent. We could relax.

Suddenly, an announcement goes over the speaker and the daughter turns to us and says "The next stop is La Spezia". WTF?? You just told us we had 7-8 stops! We quickly decided that we should get the lugagge off whilst the train was stopped and wait by the door than try to get our stuff off the racks when we pull up to La Spezia. So we quickly jump up and started moving our stuff into the walkway. Moishii jumped up to try and get my suitcase off the overhead racks. Suddenly the guy sitting next to me jumps up and helps Moishii with the suitcase. Before you think "awww, how nice of him!", the only reason he jumped up to help, was because the suitcase was directly over his head and he was worried we would drop it on him!

We finally get all our luggage out of the cabin and dragged it towards the door, where we stood in the path of everyone trying to go to the toilet or walk between carriages. But it doesn't matter. We've planned it well. We've got all our luggage by the exit, so when the train pulls up to the station, we're well prepared. We even discussed that when we pull to the station, I'll be the first one to jump off the train, and Moishii will pass me the bags one by one so minimise the rush since we're only going to have 1min to get off. Its all good! So as the train pulls into La Spezia, I could tell that the platform was closest to my door. So we rearranged all the bags to make it easier to get the luggage off whilst this old woman was standing there watching us.

So the train pulls up the station, and like everyone else I've seen do, pressed the BIG RED button by the side of the door to open the train doors. The door doesn't open. I start thumping the button with my fist. The door doesn't open. I turn to Moishii in a panic and yell "How do I open the door??? HOW DOES THIS WORK?!?!?!". Moishii, spots everyone in the next carriage getting off, so he screams "FUCK IT!! LETS GO THROUGH THE OTHER DOOR!". He grabs his suitcase and starts walking through the sliding doors between the two carriages when suddenly the door closes on him, trapping him inbetween the two carriages and squishing his arm in the door which was still gripping onto the suitcase. He starts panicking, so I start panicking and leap across the carriage to try and open the door to release him, only to knock over ALL our suitcases onto the old woman standing there. She starts screaming at me in Italian, and for some reason, I turned and punched the button again and the door opens! Next thing you know, I got tumbling out off the train steps onto the platform, and Moishii comes running to the door practically HURLING the 30kg suitcases into my face. And before I could put the last suitcase down, Moishii almost did a WWF Leap off the train barely missing me. I took one look onto the platform, and can see our bags and suitcases strewn all over the platform. Within seconds of Moishii jumping off the train, we grabbed all our suitcases and dragged it to the nearest bench where we collapsed into a heap. Suddenly, the old woman pops her head out of the train and gives us the "You're fuckin morons" look. This started a massive laughing fit that lasted 10mins. FFS! HOW HARD IS IT TO PRESS A BUTTON TO OPEN A DOOR! We had a combined total of 9 years in University between the 2 of us and WE COULDN'T OPEN A BLOODY TRAIN DOOR!!! All the planning in the world doesn't stop us being a complete walking disaster!!!

The witness to our stupidity

After we recovered from our laughing fit, we slowly grabbed our suitcases to try and find our accommodation. As we walked towards the lift, a couple got out and told us that we have to HOLD ONTO the button for the lift to move. Thank god they told us that, because we sure as hell would've gotten stuck in the lift.....

We walked into the information office and grabbed ourselves a map, as well as a train time table for our planned trip to Cinque Terre tomorrow. Luckily, our hotel is literally across the street from the train station. Unfortunately, we had to lug our suitcases down a flight of 50 steps to get there. After almost tripped down the stairs and killing ourselves, we dragged our suitcases into our hotel lobby, where the receptionist's eyes practically popped out of the sockets when they saw our luggage. That or the fact that we were both drenched in sweat. And looked like we went through hell. We checked in and they gave us the key to Room 301. So obviously we caught the lift up to Level 3 (after 2mins of trying to get our luggage into the lift, which resorted in us stacking the suitcases onto each other just to fit it) and noticed that all the room numbers are 2 digits instead of the 3 digits written on our hotel room key. So we went back down to the lobby to ask where our room is before he looked at us like complete morons and said its on the 3rd floor at the end. So I went back up and basically what they did was change the way the rooms were numbered half way down the hallway! Geees!

We drag our cargo into the room only to find it like a freezer. Atleast I can't complain that I'm hot. We immediately dumped everything onto the floor and collapsed into bed. After a nice shower, it was TV on and laptops on. I've had enough of sightseeing after the tour. It was chillout time, which allowed to me to process all the photos from last night....After a few hours of this, we thought it was time to go explore a bit. Not sightsee, just check out what is around.

We started walking around the streets only to realise that La Spezia is a shithole. Sorry, but it really is. Maybe its the area we're in, but it was just crap. I think the town is kind of in Limbo. Its trying to be a major town for tourists to come to when they can't afford to stay at any of the villages at Cinque Terre, but it really is a small town. But they've gotten themselves into a situation where they've lost the small town charm we saw all around Tuscany, but they're not big and busy enough to be a major town. Either way, I couldn't even be bothered taking any photos. Except for this:

This can't be a good sign......

After while, we decided to go grab some dinner. We walked up and down the street until we settled on the first pizzeria we saw that was around the corner from the hotel. We trek back to the restaurant and plonk ourselves down. Within seconds we had decided that we NEEDED alcohol. Infact, I think we decided we needed alcohol before we decided that we needed food!

Moishii topping up my glass for the 3rd time (Note: Food untouched)

Calzone Innards!

OK. I'm smashed. I'm serious. It must be the heat or the ordeal we went through today, but I was smashed. And Moishii was smashed. I'm surprised I didn't stab myself in the face with a fork whilst trying to eat. I don't even think we finished the bottle of wine! I can't believe this! 2 of us can't finish 1 bottle of wine! Disgraceful. I'm surprised we even managed to get up from our table without tripping over! So arm in arm, we had to support each other all the way back to the hotel without getting killed by an oncoming car. Not before stopping by the local supermarket to get supplies and mass amounts of water. Here's a lesson for you kids, never shop when drunk. We ended up with a few massive bottles of fizzy water instead of mineral water, which neither of us could drink in our drunken state! So we had to go back in and rebuy our water!

We get back to the hotel and collapse into bed. For some reason, I thought it was a good idea to have another shower in my drunken state. The only problem was the bathroom had the stupid double sliding shower doors which get stuck. And unless you tug and yank at the door to make it close properly, you'll flood the bathroom. In my drunken state, I managed to almost yank the door off the hinges and went crash flying into the other door. Meanwhile, Moishii thought I was possessed and having a fit! When I got out, I flopped into bed, this is when Will and Grace came onto the TV...in Italian! For some reason, its funnier in Italian than it is in english! This started a whole laughing fit which resulted in me accidently rolling off my bed and crash falling inbetween the gap seperating the two single beds we had. In my drunken laughing fit state, I couldn't even get back up as I had rolled partially UNDER the bed! And instead of helping me, Moishii reached for the camera whilst wiping away the tears of laughter on his face!


When I finally managed to get back onto the bed and we had settled down, we decided to rewatch the video we took last night. That was probably a bad idea considering it started off an even worse laughing fit! We laughed until we cried and the cried until we laughed more. This is getting really bad. I think we're sick in the head. It wasn't even that funny. It was a video of Kath putting on an Italian accent and giving us a goodbye speech....

When we finally calmed down, we were exhausted and ready for bed. We took a look at our watches and realised it was about 7:30pm. All those early wakeup calles on the tour must've taken their toll on us. I couldn't believe it was so early! I thought it was atleast 9pm. Didn't help we had all the window shutters closed. So I got up and walked to the balcony door and threw the doors open. I was instantly blinded by the sun. MY GOD its like a summer midday outside and we were ready for bed!! I quickly closed the door to block out any light and noise when Moishii commented on how shit our room was. Ok, it was shit. But its s 3 star hotel! Either way, Moishii started complaining that he didn't feel safe in the room, so without a second thought, I rigged up a security system in 5seconds

SMJ's Security - 5 Star Protection Guarantee!

Of course, this started another laughing fit! I swear my cheeks were going to split if I kept laughing! I'm pretty sure we passed out from exhaustion after this. It didn't help when we kept going "Hey....I need to tell you something about Milan..."

Day 18 - Pompeii and the farewell dinner in Rome

For breakfast, we ended up joining the Good Olds again. This is when Good Old told us how they went for a walk around town last night and bumped into this dog. Yes, another dog story. Anyway, she saw the dog and felt bad for the poor dog because he looked like he was starving. So she SAID to the dog "Come, I'll buy you a sandwich". And I mean she TALKED TO THE DOG. Anyway, the dog ends up following her to the nearest restaurant where she goes to order the sandwich. When she turns around, the dog had walked away. She spots the dog across the street and tells the dog to come back because she's buying him a sandwich. So she gets a ham and cheese sandwich from the restaurant and feeds it to the dog, who didn't really want to eat it. And somewhere along the line, she strikes up a conversation with a random stranger, who told Good Old, and the dog actually belongs to the restaurant that she bought the sandwich from! This is when I started screaming ath Good Old that she's NEVER bought me a ham and cheese sandwich, yet she buys a ham and cheese sandwich for a dog from the restaurant he belongs to!! I can't deal with stuff like this so early in the morning.

We bundle into the bus and off we went to see the buried city of Pompeii. It was barely 9am and already it was scorching hot. By the time we got to Pompeii, it was 30degrees. This is going to be a stinker of a day. As we walked towards the gates, I spotted an old retriever lying in the middle of the road sunbathing. Suddenly, this truck comes tearing out of nowhere towards the dog. They slammed on the brakes at the last minute because the dog basically refused to get up. He was napping and there was no way he was going to move for the truck. So the truck started edging forward towards the dog and got closer and closer. The truck was about 1m away from the dog when the dog finally moved out of the way. But he was NOT happy. He started barking at the truck as if he was saying "WTF are you doing disturbing my nap??". The minute the truck passed, the dog tottled back over and slumped back into his napping spot. I like a dog with attitude.


First stop was the toilets as there are none once we get past the gates. There's a massive fuss at the women's toilets as there are about 50people lining up with absolutely no toilet paper. Luckily I'm always well prepared whilst the rest of the tour stood around discussing the best way to carry toilet paper with you whilst on holidays..... By the time we get back to the meeting point, the guide is about to have a fit because we took so long. Off we trot into Pompeii, not before Claw Feet drops the little radio we all carry on us to listen to the guide. This is when Diane decides to help and bends down to pick it up, ends up tripping off the footpath. When she picked herself back up, she knocked Camera Susan over! No one was hurt, except me and Moishii biting our lips from trying not to laugh out loud!

We follow the guide into Pompeii and had a lovely historical tour which showed how the ancient civilisation used to live. From houses to laundromat to a fast food store. Its amazing when you think that this was all built over 2000 years ago! If it wasn't for the Mt Vesuvius eruption, I wonder what Pompeii would look like today?

A "Fast Food" shop

Ancient speed humps for the carriages

Maria entertaining us

A plaster cast of a victim of the eruption

We ended up inside one of their amphitheatres, and being what a photography freak that I am, I thought I'd climb to the top for a better shot. Whilst I was carefully climbing up the broken stone steps trying not to fall and break my neck, suddenly, the 82yo tears up the stairs past me at an alarming rate. WTF? First he outruns me, now he outclimbs me! THIS IS DISGRACEFUL! My only excuse is that I was taking care climbing up, not because he was fitter than me!

Both of them made it to the top before me!!

View from the top

Someone suggested that we give the amphitheatre a go, and suddenly Ron breaks out into a song who was then joined by another American who did a great American Idol solo. Ron of couse, immediately pounced on them to make friends. By this time I was getting a headache from the stinking hot sun. And the last thing I needed to deal with, was Good Old chasing after another dog, which was exactly what happened.

The only relief was that we found our way into an ancient brothel, that had a "menu" on the wall for you to pick what you wanted to do....would it be doggy or a threesome? Its like picking a McValue Meal...but not.

I'll take that one please!

There were also street signs built to point people to the brothels:

Subtle hey?

Me in lively Pompeii

Good Old trying to take a photo

The tour only last an hour or so, before we found ourselves back at the meeting point. It was going to be a long drive, so everyone went for a toiletbreak and then some emergency shopping. Of course I had to buy a postcard of the brothel "menu", when we spotted a penis made of metal. I think it was a paperweight or something. Anyway, me and Moishii agreed on a price that we're willing to pay for that piece of metal and began bargaining. At first, the guy was really nice to me, but after a few minutes of bargaining, we couldn't get it at a price we wanted, so we said we're not going to buy it. This is when the guy suddenly turns to me and SCREAMS "FINE!!! I DON'T WANT YOU EITHER!". WTF? I can't go anywhere without causing a scene.

We meet up with our tour group before we headed off again. Not before stopping at the Cassino Graveyards where it was 39 degrees. How do I know this? Our tour bus has a time/temperature display that tells us that we're going to melt once we get out of the bus!





As serene and sad it is there, after about 30mins there, the heat was absolutely unbearable and I thought I was going to passout. God I love Umberto and his airconditioned bus. We enjoy the lovely air conditioning when we pull into a massive AutoGrill. I immediately line up at the Ciao Restaurant, as I couldn't handle another sandwich. I was seriously sandwiched out. I was indecisive and ordered an asparagus risotto and pasta nepolitana. My god did I wish that I had ordered an entire plate of the risotto!!! It was unbelievable! I've never tasted something so simple, yet utterly moreish. I wanted a whole plate by myself, and more to take home with me!!! This was truly Italy on a plate.

More small goods sold at the AutoGrill

Random photo of a woman who started my latest laughing fit for no particular reason

After lunch, we were off to Rome where we were dropped off at the Spanish Steps. Since we've already done the Spanish Steps, we decided to move onto more important things. Find an ATM so we had money to spend!! Once our wallets were all cashed up, we headed back to the steps only to see Kath and Spencer at the steps. We immediately jumped into their photo screaming we needed photos together!


When we got back up to the top of the stairs to meet everyone else, Good Old told us she walked into the building directly opposite us that was called "something" Medicini Hotel. She saw the Medicini and rushed in asking for pills thinking it was a pharmacy. Its a HOTEL! Not a pharmacy! Not like she needs anymore pills considering we saw Maria give her some of her private stash this morning. Meanwhile, Diane paid 8euros for 2 small bottles of coke. My god, these people are all made out of money! So we're all standing around waiting for Rene and her kids to show up, and when they finally do after being 15mins late, the 82yo had a fit at them. Not wanting to be in the middle of a domestic, I just walked off towards the bus instead.

We get dropped off at the hotel where it's a mad rush to get our hotel room keys and luggage. We relaxed and tried to take a nap before getting ready for dinner. This was going to be the big themed farewell dinner of the tour. We all met in the lobby, and everyone was all dressed up for dinner. Good Old was wearing her 200euro lace top whilst I was getting stares from the men on the tour. Lets not go there. Anyway, as we were walking to the bus, half of the group walked out a side door, whilst me and Good Old walked through the revolving doors. This is when she starts clapping and giggling saying how much she loves revolving doors, because when she was younger, she cut her brothers finger off with a revolving door......"but it was only the TIP of his finger" she says. Right.

We get to the restaurant, and immediately we're greeted by a Gladiator at the door where we take a photo with him. We ended up getting seated with Will and Diane and Salt and Pepper. Of course, before we even started eating, they were already screaming for the salt and pepper again. If of course, had more important things to deal with. Red wine or white wine? I decided to start with the Red since Salt and Pepper was telling us how good the Red Wine was as they sell it in their Indian Italian Deli. So I started with the red and damn it was good. Next thing you know, I'm topping up everyone's glasses. This was great fun, especially when half the table got sloshed!

Maybe it was the wine, but I swear the food was fantastic!

Bruschetta

Italian smoked pork

Fettucine cabonara and Pesto orecchiette

Grilled veal steak with potatoes and rocket

Forest berry cake

Throughout the whole night, they had entertainment where they had this couple walking around the room performing various Italian songs and even throwing in an Opera act. They were actually really good and got everyone into a partying mood.


And being known as the photography nut, I of course had to live up to expectations and went around taking photos of everyone. And luckily for me, I managed to walk over to Clawfeet's table just as she smashed a wine glass! I think someone should lay off the alcohol!




After about a hundred shots, someone said I actually needed to get in on the photos!

The only way the tour people could recognise me - with my camera!

They also went around trying to sell us copies of the photo we took with the Gladiator. I did the only thing that was right. I took a photo of the photo and then refused to buy it! (You don't try to sell a crummy photo to someone carrying THREE CAMERAS!)

Somewhere in the middle of the night, people started getting up before dessert even came out to start the farewells, next thing you know, there was crying and hugging and god knows what else. At one stage, Kath managed to get Diane in a head lock and started squeezing and pinching her cheeks like she was a 1y.o. baby. I didn't know whether to cringe or to laugh.




Meanwhile, I took a photo with the 81y.o. who put me into her iron finger grip. She basically wrapped her arms around my waist, and then CRUSHED my ribs with her bare hands! I was 5 secs away from a broken rib! I think she was trying to get to my kidney. Maybe thats how she stays so young and vibrant? SHE STEALS PEOPLE'S KIDNEYS!!



After that, it was just photo after photo!!

Kath trying to have a go at my kidneys as well

The photos didn't stop when we got onto the bus. Infact, I couldn't stop taking photos! I think that was my way of dealing with the singing that was going on in the bus! Ron had written a song for Umberto and he managed to wrestle the mic out of Cabbage Patch's hands and performed for us. Meanwhile, Maria started "The wheels on the bus goes round and round....." and got half of the bus dancing!

Of course, by this stage I had developed a cramp in my finger causing me to keep taking photos nonstop!

Kath burying me in her hair! I swear there was a nest of birds in there!

The night ended with a very drunken Kath giving us a farewell speech. For the love of me I don't understand a word she said except "Ciao! Ciao! Muah! Muah!!". We were going to say our last farewells and duck back into the room when we got cornered by Clawfeet and Colgate. They knew that we had travelled the Greek Islands and Turkey before, so they bought their itinerary down to the lobby to go through it with us. They were apparently going to go Istanbul and down the coast before heading off to Mykonos and Santorini. After chatting for 20mins, we managed to escape and say our farewells before we crashed into bed.