Homeward Bound

The time has come. I have finished the first mini-leg (let's say the first ankle) of my time in Italy. I'd crammed so much into a month that I had plenty to think about on my way back. Early the next morning, my friend and I got up and got ready to get the bus down to Sanremo from Baiardo. We had to be quiet as Tom Daly (not really, you might want to get an explanation for that) was still sleeping. We managed to get on the bus and get down into Sanremo nice and early. We hopped on a train to Nice and left Italy behind, for now at least...

Because I only had hand luggage, I went straight through security with my friend as I didn't have to wait for check-in to open. My friend was leaving a few hours earlier than me, so I sellotaped her to her plane and then found myself a nice little corner to do some relaxing. The hours slipped by and soon I was on my early evening flight back to Liverpool. I have never seen such a beautiful view as we left Nice and I'm genuinely sorry I can't share it with you in photographic form - blame Easyjet. The airport is right on the coast, so as we took off, the sea yawned out before us showing the curviture of the earth on the horizon. The sun was on its way down and throwing this beautiful yellow glow over everything. The sea was perfectly calm and the yachts in the bay were drawing patterns with their wakes. What a stunning parting gift.

It was then, when I was thousands of feet up in the air that I decided to write down my memories from Italy so that one day I could share my collection of bizarre and incredible stories with the general public. I got out my Moleskine notepad and started at the very beginning and my adventures in Nice all the way through to the lady that wanted to get changed completely on the bus to Baiardo. I made my first few observations about the art of the 'man purse', queuing etiquette and the completely different pace of life in Italy compared to the UK. The last observation I made was that despite all these things, I couldn't wait to go back.

I didn't have long to wait. In theory I should have stayed out in Italy for an extra couple of days to give me a smooth transition into a language course that I was going to do for the month of August, and with hindsight I could have gone and stayed with my family in Brescia, but these things are never set in stone and so I had already booked a flight home. It was nice though; I got to see most of my family and share with them some of my madcap stories and repack my bag for learning instead of teaching. And four days later, I was ready to go all over again...