Heading East

On the Friday of orientation we were put in groups and told where we'd be going. Despite the churning rumour mill, everyone got a place, including Jack and Jill... I was off with two girls that in honour of Pride and Prejudice we shall call Kitty and Lydia. I had spent very little time with them during the week and I had a feeling that Kitty was going to take it very seriously and Lydia, well, wasn't. I was half right (more on that later).

Although we were by ourselves in a compartment on the 9am train east from Sanremo, we'd left as a mass exodus of tutors so every now and then a familiar face would stop by. A short while later Lydia scarpered to watch Shrek 2 with 'her friends'.

Lydia was a funny one. She was stick thin, like properly stick thin, like skeletal, like a bit gross. She was born in Malta, but was really English, and studied in Birmingham. Along this confused family tree were some Italian grandparents, giving her a reasonable grasp of the language. Despite this, when an elderly couple entered the carriage, wanting to sit in their rightful seats - one of which Lydia was occupying (or, to be precise, a third of which Lydia was occupying) - I've never seen so much huffing: you'd have thought it was a steam train...

I actually thought the couple were very polite about it all considering the Italians can get flared up so easily, but Lydia, who seemed incapable of working out the seating plan stuck to the wall exploded (or imploded as she didn't actually go on and make a scene). Not much longer into the journey she had answered the call of Shrek.

Now I love a petulant teenage display of insolence as much as the next person, but I could see that we probably weren't going to be the best of friends forever and ever. I was just glad she ran off so she could moan at someone else.

Kitty, however, was much harder to read; we did the polite conversations, the awkward silences, nothing that will really help you to get to know someone. She didn't seem to fit into the stereotype I'd given her and in true Pride and Prejudice style, I realised that my first impression may have been wrong.

The only time I'd really spoken to her had been in a group activity earlier in the week when she'd shouted down one of my ideas in favour of one of hers, which turned out to be a bit rubbish. But after my reassessment on the train, I decided I would get to know her a little better after placing her into a Stereotype-Tupperware and putting on the air-tight seal. I suppose I considered her a little incompetant; both Lydia and I spoke Italian and seemed to be a little more Europe-savvy than Kitty (who was from Canada).

We changed trains in Milan - my first trip through Milan station (please make a note, it will not be the last), and, with a reduced number of tutors, started heading towards Brescia.