Fast Cars and Not-So Fast Women

We're two weeks further along in my language course, and I think it's high time for another brief hiatus. A couple of weeks ago I dealt with amusing things, now I'm going to look at something quintessentially Italian: the motor car. After being in Italy for seven weeks I had begun to notice the art of the motor car and the Italian obsession with it. I appreciate everything with an engine and therefore seeing some of these vehicles in their native environment was quite special. So if I saw something of interest, my coursemates would be taking pictures of pretty buildings and spectacular views, I would be looking the other way, taking a picture of the interesting car that was parked up a side road somewhere.

This first example was seen in Sanremo at the hotel that boasted, amongst other things, the laughing seagull. You can't tell from that picture, but it's actually a British Italian car, that is a Lamborghini with British plates. On the other side of the makeshift turning circle is a Porsche, also with British plates. It's sights like that one that make me proud to be British, knowing that my countrymen have such a good taste in cars...

This was seen just outside the Frassassi Caves. My coursemates were still walking round with beautiful stalagmites and stalagtites seared into their brains, but I was attracted by something of a much different nature. I confess to not knowing a great deal about bikes other than if they look pretty or not. I'm not a great lover of Harleys, but this one (which I believe is a Yamaha) was a pretty special specimen.

If I were able, this would be my car: an old style Fiat 500 Arbarth, souped up with silly additions almost everywhere. The boot doesn't close and there are scorpion badges painted everywhere. Italy is really the only place you can get away with driving a car like that, or else I'd have one over here. I saw it on our tour of Camerino and while my coursemates were admiring the view, my attention was taken hook, line and sinker by this extraordinary motor.

I found this ostentatious motorbike at Porto Recanati on the Rimini coast. I have no idea what it is, but I fell in love with it. It was big and orange and shouty and in-your-face - it was everything I had wanted to be in life (well nearly). I felt I had a certain connection with it, so convinced my friends to take my photo together with it. There's even a Vespa in the background to make things 1. even more Italian and 2. even better.

A little while later, we found another Fiat 500 - maybe the beach is where all the cool people with cool motors end up (ignore the Fiat Multipla in the background). As you can see I like people to think that it's my car, so I pretended I was snapped nonchalantly getting into my retro but classic wheels. Smooth.

My last picture also comes from the day I had at the beach - what can I say, it wasn't that great architecturally so I decided to take lots of pictures of other things of interest. This was particularly interesting to me. As a person who is challenged when it comes to parking, this was impressive. Very impressive.

Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon

During our language course, Sundays were our days off; there were 'voluntary' excursions to places like Siena, Urbino and Venice, but in this particular case 'voluntary' means 'expensive'. Don't get me wrong I really wanted to visit those places, but not for 60Eur a time - especially when I was moving to Verona in about six weeks where I would be a 6Eur train ride from Venice and you don't need a degree in maths to work out the savings...

The first Sunday of the language course Bree and Gaby decided they were going to go to Venice, and because I didn't know many people by that point I decided I was going to chill out and, for those of you with a good memory, Skype the family in the main piazza.

There were two more Sundays on the language course and I think the general consensus on at least one of them was to go to the beach. My experience of the Rimini coast had, up to that point, been a little disappointing: shingly beaches and expensive sun loungers. This didn't really appeal to me and I really begrudged paying to not enjoy myself all day.

I shared my musings with Susan and Lynette and I was surprised to hear that they thought the same and were considering staying around Camerino too. Susan and I had gotten really close as we were sharing Wendy's class time banter. I had also started spending a lot of time in their apartment to avoid Hurricane Gaby.

They lived in a much more central apartment, but to be honest in Camerino no two places are that far from each other. They lived opposite the cafe from the first morning and always got a rude awakening when the locals would descend to read the papers (and then discuss them very loudly) at 7am.

It was a much older apartment to mine and Gaby's, but where our living space had a small table, a fridge, and a tiny television, they had sofas and a proper place to relax. If we'd had that in our apartment I might not be going so loopy about Gaby because I could leave her to hurricane about in our room and I could have shotgunned a sofa so that I could lie down in peace and think about rolling hillsides and gamboling lambs.

Anyway, so I tended to spend some of my time there, some of my time upstairs (in Bree's apartment) and then a teeny-tiny bit of time in my flat, rocking in the foetal position.

Fortunately for me (and for her), Gaby went to the beach with her 'new' friends. Bree went too because of the large number of Portuguese-speakers so she could have a day-off from speaking [very good] English and Italian. So that left the three of us to enjoy our Sundays by spending some quality time together.

Lovely.

Ever since the international dinner, Susan had developed a bit of a thing for my scones (no euphemism intended). I don't think there's a Croatian equivalent and so understandably this little slice of England had wormed its way into her heart (even if they were like pellets due to the lack of self raising flour in Italy).

I invited the girls round for lunch - we did it Italian style in that it was our main meal - and then I baked some scones for pudding. We only had a week of the language course left, but I would have been more than happy to study with these girls all through my year abroad. I was actually facing the real possibility of never seeing them ever again and that was something I didn't really want to happen.

I thought back to the month previous where I'd waved goodbye to my friends at Sanremo train station, and if you remember, I never saw them again. Obviously I didn't know that then, or even when I was thinking about the last week at Camerino I didn't know that it would just be so hard to keep in touch with people and that they really can be friends for a season and nothing else.

Still, I decided to make the most of the moment because I wasn't going to have very many more with these girls, in Camerino at least. We ate very well, shared some great times, and then for some reason I sang 'Lost?' by Coldplay very loudly and a bit too low - there's even a video to prove it (I'll spare you that one though).

Rejoice Florence and Take Some Stupid Pictures!

Now you may have been bitterly disappointed with my last post about my visit to Florence. Where was the banter? Where was the back-story? Well readers, I love Florence for its architecture and I wanted to devote an entire post to its beauty before I launch into how I abused it by taking a plethora of ridiculous pictures along the way.

If you remember me saying that I couldn't tell you any of the little pearls of wisdom we were told on our tour, then you're about to find out why...

So the day started by the Uffizi - the most famous art gallery in Florence (the one where David isn't). I found a statue of Neptune and with a bit of clever positioning, managed to ruin the iconography of Renaissance art in about thirty seconds. Job done.

At this point in the language course, inter-group relations couldn't have been any better. To be honest it was the peak - we'd spent all that time climbing up to this point and in the final week with the test and goodbyes pending, things started to wane a little. Oh well, that's to look forward to in a future post...

The 'Desperate' gang - me, Bree, Lynette, Susan (and some tag-alongs) decided to take on the city together (initially at least) and soaked in all the sights together. For those of you who are interested, Gaby didn't join us because she was meeting up with a friend in Florence and, understandably, she wanted to see her and not us.

So we hopped aboard the banter train and went to another part of the city - another sight to see, another old thing to take a picture of - there really isn't any rest for the wicked...

At this magnificent sight, the amusing picture of the hour was using the Obelix thing to make us into majestic unicorns. Score.

Our tour guide was sensing the lack of focus and thought he'd give us a break before he lost us completely to deface other important sights in Florence. This break gave us another photo opportunity...

I've always wondered what I'd look like with dark straight hair.

Now I know.

What was more entertaining was how the rest of the gang looked with blonde curls. Now that was entertaining - especially when we tried it on our tour guide (a sweaty, slightly pervy Italian bloke called Carlo).

After that excitement we calmed down a little and ventured over the the Boboli Gardens via the Ponte Vecchio: name-dropping a-go-go.

In front of the Boboli Gardens is a building that is important though I forget what it is - the only reason I remembered about the gardens was because of their funny name.

Anyway, in front of that is a large expanse of, well, nothing. It's just a large patch of gravel with a funny sculpture on it, but we'll get to that later. First, Susan and I decided to declare our love for each other.

Once that was done, we turned to the sculpture that I think was supposed to be a cat: if you're blind and don't know what a cat looks like. Or feels like. Or really if you don't know what a cat is.

Because of this comtempt towards the stupid piece of modern art spoiling my favourite Italian city, I decided to mock it in an amusing picture. Check.

The last picture is my favourite. It intends not to mock, but to admire, to appreciate and open a discourse on contrasting cultures and how they impact on society. That and it's just darn funny...

After that the Fantastic Four split up and Bree and I went off in search of scarves and 'Ciao Bella' t-shirts and Susan and Lynette went off in search of coffee. That job completed, we met back up at Neptune's bottom and left the city.

In my previous post you may recall we stopped off for one last sight to see on our way back and the photo-fun didn't end there, but you can read all about that here...

Rejoice Florence!

Florence is one of my favourite Italian cities. The only real competitor, in my eyes, is Venice, but Venice isn't really like anywhere on earth so I tend to put it in a category all its own making Florence numero uno! I'd been to Florence once before in my life when I visited Italy on a family holiday back in 2005. To be honest, I wasn't bowled over: it was a cloudy day, but still really muggy; I resented having to walk such a long way; and to be honest when you're 16, Renaissance architecture just doesn't quite float your boat, Valentino Rossi, yes, the Duomo from goodness-knows-when, not really.

We were nearing the end of our third week in Camerino and I'd reached the point where I was bored of visiting churches and quaint Italian towns. I freely admit to hating myself for that, but it didn't change the way I felt about it all.

Saturday was to see us all go on a mass-outing to Florence. We'd done Assisi and Perugia on the first Saturday, we'd done Rome (in a big way) on the second. Finally it was the turn of Florence - home to Dante (before he was exiled), the old Duomo thing, and the bridge with all the shops on. Nice.

We had a really early get up - in fact the sun hadn't quite risen when we left Camerino, but was giving us a spectacular show nonetheless. It was a bit of an arduous journey, but despite my previous encounter, I was really looking forward to going to Florence and making a better fist of it this time around.

We arrived at about 11'o'clock and started walking into the centre of town. The day was much nicer than the one I had been greeted with during my first visit, but there was a beautiful breeze that made the intense heat a little more bearable.

What I noticed very early on was that Florence was very Italian. I know. Well done for stating the obvious, but let me explain. What I love about Italy is the fact that they have never heard of Barratt Homes plc. - they are completely oblivious to the fact that you can create uniform housing estates which are kinder to the eye aesthetically, but how many Japanese tourists do you see taking pictures of housing estates in Surrey?

Italy has real character. The buildings are like people hemmed into a small space - each one is different and no-one seems to care. In between all this chaos you occasionally find a bit of architecture that makes your jaw drop to the floor and pull out the camera.

This is the relationship I have with the Duomo in Florence. From every angle it's magnificent - you can't take a bad picture of it. Don't believe me? I'll let you make up your own mind...

You can tell that I spent a lot of time getting intimately acquainted with this building. I wasn't quite at the stage where I wanted to marry it (like the lady who married the Berlin Wall) but I was in awe of its beauty.

This was just one of the many stops on our journey. As per usual we were having a guided tour so that we could see all the best places in the city and learn a little about them as we went.

The tour (after a break for lunch) went on into the afternoon and ended at the Boboli Gardens on the other side of the city. I can't remember anything of what was said on the tour - no facts, no nuggets of information, but I remember loving it. I was loving just being in Florence, being in such an amazing city. There was nothing about it that I couldn't explain away as character, or charm.

We had a few hours to ourselves before we had to meet for the bus and we decided to wind our way back into town via a bridge that would give us a view of the Ponte Vecchio - the bridge with all the shops on. It is such an iconic image of the city, and it was good to see it again close-up, but this time appreciate it a little more.

The day ended too soon in my opinion and we all piled onto the coach to go back to Camerino. There was, however, one more stop that we had to make before leaving the city. There is a piazza above the city with one of the replica statues of David and an incredible view of Florence down below. The sun had started the day by giving us a stunning sunrise, kept us warm throughout, and gave us a parting gift as I waved goodbye to the city I wouldn't return to for a number of years...

 Florence, Italy, 2009

Baci Baci from Gubbio

Things escalated as I left the International Dinner: I decided I was going to head home after the limbo started. I mean I love limbo as much as the next slightly irritating British tourist, but it doesn't mean I can do it, and I certainly can't do it if I'm wearing a non-elasticated skirt without showing a lot more than I intended.

So I left the party. My friends did not. In fact as we met at the school the following morning, there were quite a few dark-glasses-wearing individuals that were avoiding loud noises and Lynette had some suspiscious scabs on her knees. I quizzed her about this at break time.
'Have a little accident did you?'
'Just a little one.'
'Was it by any chance limbo related?'
'Maybe...'

It turned out things had got pretty rowdy and Lynette, being quite tall, was at a limbo disadvantage and paid thr price with a fall in the last round. Occupational hazard.

That afternoon we were going on another outing. It was week three and I was a little bored of these outings. We'd been to so many places, seen so many churches, had lectures about the Roman conquest of this and the Renaissance revival of that and I was getting a teensy-weensy bit tired of it all. I did hate myself for it - I was in Italy, supposedly living la dolce vita and all I could think of was where I could stop off for a coffee and lose the enthusiastic tour guide.

Gubbio was Roman at some point. The aforementioned tour guide was loving life and going on and on and on and on about why it was so Roman (frankly with the dirty great ampitheatre it wasn't a surprise) and so I kind of stopped listening. Bree and I instead found a more fun pursuit - pretending to be Roman. I don't mean that we adopted the tortoise formation and wore red skirts under our formidable armour - we just pretended to look Roman with our expressions and then take a picture in front of the Roman relic to adorn Facebook - it was a good idea at the time...

After this entertaining chapter of my life, we moved on to a church: I'll do my surprised face, oh wait, I don't have one... That day I happened to be committing a heinous crime in that not only were my provocative knees on show, but my alluring shoulders were as well. It was a mutual decision therefore not to enter the church and so I sat outside looking grumpy with Susan. I wasn't actually grumpy, but after sitting in a coach for over an hour, looking briefly Roman, and the prospect of more uninteresting culture to absorb, all I wanted was that coffee.

Apart from being vaguely Roman, Gubbio was famous for another reason. The town was on two levels and at the top was a quaint old town overlooking the Umbrian plains. Nestled within the backstreets was a well - supposedly a magic well. Yeah, I rolled my eyes too. I think the story went something like, if you visited Gubbio and you didn't want to get mad (as in crazy, not angry) then you had to run round the well seven times. Many, many of my coursemates gave this a go; Susan and I found a Vespa and took pictures of each other on it. We both shared the same feelings of apathy at this point in the course and though we enjoyed visiting new places, taking part in the ridiculous traditions was maybe a step too far.

I was getting on really well with Susan and Lynette; Gaby had cooled off again; and Bree was going through a bit of a rough patch so was cooling off with everyone. Basically her boyfriend was being a bit of an idiot and there was very little we could say to make her feel better about this so she turned to one of the Brazilian guys for a friendly shoulder to moan on. We were still all friends, but I think Bree was suffering from the 'Afternoon at the Pool' syndrome and really wanted some time to herself.

One of the other attractions of Gubbio was a cable car up to the top of the hill on which it resides. Normally I love a good cable car, a beautiful view, and a bit of banter on the way, but on that particular day I really couldn't be bothered. Neither could Susan. The others all wanted to go on the cable car ride, but I could think of a better way to spend 7Eur.

Susan and I went back down to the lower town and found a cafe - admittedly it was quite an expensive cafe, but my 7 Euros were much better off spent on a cup of coffee, a brioche and chats with Susan. We'd formed quite a formidable team in Wendy's classes and when it came to dull lectures all about culture, we shared a very similar viewpoint.

The others returned from their excursion in desperate need of a drink themselves, so they joined us at the cafe for a spot of something before the bus came to take us back to Camerino. They'd enjoyed it, but the enjoyment probably wasn't worth 7Eur and, like the afternoon at the pool, they were kind of regretting not going for the simple option.

We went home that evening after having enjoyed the day, not for the culture, but for the chance to spend it in good company.

Later on that week I emailed my friends and family telling them about my trip to Gubbio and signed off 'baci baci' - kisses. My parents picked up on this: baci baci from Gubbio? Are you secretly in Liverpool?

I said though it sounded like it, I wasn't...

Pub Grub

One of the things I missed about the UK when I was in Italy (and believe me there weren't many) was the traditional British pub grub. I LOVE mashed potato and pie and gravy and roast potatoes and steamed green veg and stuffing with roast dinners, and did I mention mashed potato? This is something that is yet to go viral in Italy.

That said, I love the Italian cafe culture and all the delicious food on offer, however peculiar, and I was in no hurry to get home for a traditional roast. This was not the view of those in charge, and for week three they had scheduled in a nostalgic banquet made up of the very best dishes from our various countries. I confess I was really looking forward to this. Well I was until I realised that it was the students were supposed to provide the food.

The idea was very simple: everyone has the opportunity to make one of their national dishes (official or otherwise) and after presenting it to the group, we would feast on the international delights available. If I were back home in the UK, this wouldn't even phase me slightly: pop down to Tesco and grab everything a girl could need to make the perfect British banquet.

I was not in the UK. There is no branch of Tesco in Camerino. There isn't even an Aldi.

It wasn't long before loopholes were being exploited and several factions had been formed. If it wasn't all in the name of food we'd have a serious problem: the Portuguese lining up against the Spanish; the Brazilians squaring up to Poland. It was a recipe for disaster (don't you love an inadvertant pun).

As Lynette and I were the sole representatives from the UK, it was only natural that we stick together and pool our resources against the considerable might of the other nations. So early that afternoon we sat down with a notepad and began brainstorming cheap and easy British dishes that we could replicate with nice simple ingredients like eggs and flour and pasta...

This was not a terriby easy task and we eventually decided on a meal of Toad in the Hole with jam scones for pudding. Yum. What then ensued was a panic visit to Skype as we both called our respective families for the age-old tried-and-tested recipes from Grandma.

Banquet T-5 hours.

So with five hours to go we had two recipes and no ingredients, we also needed to produce a poster of our recipes all nicely written our in Italian. It's a shame we couldn't knit some time... While Lynette was getting the fine details of her Toad in the Hole recipe, I pressganged a tutor to help me write out these recipes in Italian.

Banquet T-4.5 hours.

Time for a trip to Eurospin, Italy's half-hearted answer to Tesco: flour, butter, eggs, milk, sausages, jam and a spot of whipped cream, oh and some bananas, and a bit of pasta, maybe some more disposable razors and a new hairbrush...

Banquet T-3 hours.

We arrived back at Lynette's flat to do the cooking. My apartment was full of Portuguese people after a nasty incident with internal affairs causing two rival factions to develop. Lynette, despite there being five nations represented in her flat, had the run of the kitchen and chose to shotgun it for Queen and Country.

Susan, the only representative from Croatia, was lacking in motivation because taking on a venture like that solo was quite an expensive operation; so for one day, and one day only, the UK joined forces with Croatia to create something beautiful. Well, Lynette and I cooked whilst making the poster at the same time, Susan ate some of the spoils - you have to be sure it tastes good: she tried a few just to be really sure.

Banquet T-2 hours.

In the Red Kitchen (to use a Ready, Steady, Cook analogy) I was making the scones. I didn't have cutters and neither did I have self-raising flour, or even baking powder: they turned out to be quite an interesting shape... Still, chop them in two, coat them with jam and cream, and no-one knows any different.

Banquet T-1 hour.

In the Green Kitchen Lynette was having some trouble with her recipe. It transpired, after a long time, that the quantities had been wrong. We'd sort of guessed and added more bits as we saw fit, but it wasn't going to be quite worthy of Aunt Bessie.

Banquet T-30 minutes.

With half an hour to go, we were putting the finishing touches to the poster and arranging our goodies in such a way to earn a few more points for presentation. Speaking of presentation, we also had to present our dishes to the group. I'm normally a confident and outgoing person, but I had never done public speaking in a foreign language and I wasn't looking forward to it. Lynette and I prepared a little of what we were going to say.

Banquet T-10 minutes.

We arrived at the banquet venue, a courtyard at the university, next door to my flat. We put our poster up and added our plates to the table. It wasn't long before everyone else joined us with plates of steaming food and the principal called proceedings to order.

Each nation (or faction of each nation) presented their dishes. In the UK the Health and Safety wombles would have a breakdown - food prepared by the unwashed in greasy kitchens that wouldn't know a hygiene certificate if it swept up all the discarded food on the floor and put all the washed dishes back in the cupboards. But we're in Italy and things like that don't matter - no-one got food poisoning so what's the problem!?

It was soon our turn to do the presentation and I think the subtle irony of tea and scones and the literal translation of Toad in the Hole was a little lost on our audience, but they seemed to enjoy the results nonetheless. I saw a Spanish woman manhandling our toad in the Hole so she could get a piece of that batter-and-frankfurter combination for herself; despite being a pudding, all the scones had gone by the time I'd made a swoop of the rest of the table; and the only things we'd be taking home it turned out, would be the dishes.

So all in all it was a success. We didn't win, but then again it was more about the taking part. In this particular competition being outdone by your rivals only means you get a nicer dinner and that's a compromise I'm willing to get on board with.

The banquet soon became a party (started by Poker Face before launching into a Reggaeton mash-up) and I retired early - just as the limbo was getting started...

An Afternoon at the Lake

I have to make an apology. My last-but-one post was entitled 'An Afternoon at the Pool' only it wasn't. This post is entitled 'An Afternoon at the Lake', but for readers who fear a pattern emerging, you can rest easy - we actually spent an afternoon at the lake.

The lake in question was Lago di Fiastra. The course was proceeding nicely and after the afternoon my friends spent at the pool wasn't as relaxing as they had thought it would have been, we thought some TLC at a lake would be just what we needed.

We met at the bus stop in Camerino and, as per usual, shotgunned the back of the bus. It was a kind of twisty journey, one of those vomit-inducing rides where the front of the bus is about three corners ahead of the back. So if I wasn't looking forward to lying in the sun all afternoon before, it was about to become necessary.

If you were wondering how things were going with Gaby after last night, I can't really tell you. It's not that I'm keeping a dastardly secret for her, or that it was so unpleasant I dare not speak of it - the truth is I don't know. She stumbled in bladdered out of her theatrical mind... again... at goodness knows 'o' clock in the morning. I was up and out of the house before her, I lunched with Lynette and Susan, and the first time I saw her was getting on the bus.

She immersed herself (like everyone else, due to the road conditions) in some music and when we disembarked at the lake she suddenly decided that hiring a sun-lounger (like the rest of us) was a silly and expensive thing to do because all the cool people (like the ones in her class) were totes going to rough it on towels round the headland.

So with Gaby out of the picture, Susan, Lynette, Bree and I hired our outrageous sun-loungers (2Eur - woh...) and sat ourselves in the sun. It was a hazy afternoon - warm, of course, but the sun wasn't beating down and frying everything in sight like normal. Conditions were perfect and with the breeze coming in off the lake, I really could have stayed there for hours.

This didn't happen.

Bree was very keen to dip her feet into the cool waters of Fiastra and very keen that as many of us as possible should join her. Lynette did with little persuasion, but Bree wanted to encourage me to get involved as well.

Problem.

I had no pants for my bikini and going without tends to be frowned upon even in Italy (despite the prolific nudity that appears in public places). I was wearing pants, you'll be relieved to read, but not the kind that you can go swimming in. Still, I wanted to cool off and have a paddle, and paddle I did. Not for long - there's only so much time you can kill walking up and down while your friends are swimming about 10 feet away.

It wasn't long before I decided that my 2Eur sun-lounger was more fun and I went back to join Susan who had resolutely denied all requests that she join us in the lake - she was minding our stuff. It wasn't long before Bree and Lynette came back too as splashing about for more than about twenty minutes when you're not eight  can get a little tiresome.

It sooned turned out that lying down on a 2Eur sun-lounger for any more than twenty minutes wasn't to Bree's liking either and she got the mother of all itchy feet.
'Aren't you bored?'
'Not really' I replied.
'Let's do something.'
'Like what?'
She scanned the horizon and soon found something that would entertain her adequately.
'Let's hire a pedalo.'

We all sat up and turned to her.
'A pedalo!?'
A pedalo.

We hired a pedalo.

There were several for hire - six-seaters and four-seaters. There were four of us, so brilliant, let's hire a four-seater pedalo. Susan did not want to do this. She was very much enjoying lying down and was very concerned about the stuff we would be leaving behind for all and sundry to pilfer (she must have been an expert at keeping an eye on things whilst her own eyes were shut...).

So we were about to hire a four-seater pedalo with only three people. We threw the offer out to those around us and soon found that no-one wanted to spend an hour with us on an unsteady craft in the middle of a very deep lake.
'Why not ask Gaby?' said Bree.
We asked Gaby. She thought that with all the money she had saved not hiring a sun-lounger, hiring a pedalo would probably be ok.

We set sail.

Now after having read that relations were a little strained between myself and Gaby, you may have thought that an hour with her on the aforementioned raft of death would have ended in just that. It wasn't nearly as bad. The thing about Gaby is that Gaby is quite like her Desperate Housewives character. Gabrielle Solis was (at times) self-seeking, self-interested, self-ish - anything that has the word 'self' in. It is not by chance that I called my Gaby, Gaby. So though I was finding Gaby a little irritating, she was oblivious to this and a harmonious hour on the lake together would only take a deep breath and new attitudes to tolerance on my part.

We all had a lovely time. If you've never pedalo-ed on a calm Italian lake as the sun set before, you really should give it a go. It actually did wonders for mine and Gaby's friendship and I left the lake a whole lot more relaxed about the situation.

Once we hit dry land, it turned out that Susan was now very bored (and had been for some time), but as the sun-lounger hire people wanted their sun-loungers back, we were left standing around waiting for the bus to come with very little to occupy ourselves with.

The coach arrived eventually and we piled on and took our seats. Gaby wanted to sit on her own with her music and proceeded to lip sync (much to our amusement) all the way home...

Asterix

I'd spent a very pleasant afternoon not at the pool and I was quite looking forward to catching up with my friends at a bar in the square. There were several groups of friends on the course and each of them had a watering-hole. We used to water at Asterix.

It was largely open-air (it is Italy) and it extended into the square itself. It was quite American in style - they served chips (well I suppose you'd call them fries) and extra large soft drinks inamongst the standard Italian cocktails and wines. It wasn't the classiest place I'd ever come across, but it was great to sit out and watch the townsfolk Camerino go by and chat with the other people that decided to water at Asterix too.

Gaby had come home, eaten in a hurry and was busy doing her homework so that she could come out to Asterix with us. I was sitting calmly eating a nice spot of pasta and she was ricocheting off the walls like a pinball in a pinball machine, trying to get everything done in time: she was a tornado of tenses, rattling off the imperfect and the future whilst stirring bubbling pots and trying not to burn even more some already-crucified chicken.

I finished, washed my dishes and walked slowly into the bedroom to begin getting ready. I then did what was becoming normal, and shut her open and overflowing drawer, closed the cupboard door so that if I sat on my bed I wouldn't be sitting in a little alcove of solitary confinement, and wandered into the bathroom.

As I sat on the loo I could hear Hurricane Gaby hurtling around and when I emerged, predictably, the overflowing drawer was open and vomiting all over the floor, and my pillow was once again reduced to a darkened corner away from the rest of civilisation. I collected my bag and told her I was leaving. Hurricane Gaby had one final bustle before exiting the flat with me.

On the way to the bar I asked her what the incredible rush was - she didn't need to stay out too late with us; we were just intending to have a few drinks and leave it there.

'No!' she said indignantly, 'I'm not staying at Asterix, I'm meeting some people from my class later.'

Oh.

I confess I didn't really know the people in her class very well. They watered elsewhere in town and were very much a hermetically sealed clique that turned their noses up at some people and looked down their noses at the others. Together with this, Gaby was becoming more and more interested in blokes. After the incident at Babaloo where she had an incident with one of the gentlemen on the course, she'd used that as a springboard to see what the other the gents were like. The sort-of boyfriend she was ready to run away with at the beginning had now vanished into the ether.

So by the time we arrived at Asterix she decided that she didn't want to have a drink with us at all and she busied off to her other friends. I think I was quite relieved by this and I sighed happily before taking my seat at a table with Lynette, Susan and Bree. Brilliant.

We got the drinks in and I caught up with the girls and asked them how their day had been. They'd had fun at the pool, but it hadn't really been worth the money, and it turns out that my relaxing afternoon in voluntary solitary confinement was much the better option.

Still, no hard feelings and it was great to relax in the piazza. Hang on. What are those guys bringing in? Wait, are those speakers? Does that guy have a guitar? Ok so quiet evening turned into live music in the piazza. But then again I love live music so I wasn't too gutted. So how was it?

Let's say it was a trip down memory lane as I hadn't listened to Green Day since high school. That said it was really quite interesting to hear the singer chew up the words so that all he was really doing was making funny noises. That's what happen if you sing in a different language that you can't really speak in the first place.

Don't believe me?

(I apologise for the quality of the video and the Italian man who seemed to know exactly where my camera was pointing through the eyes in the back of his head.)

Anyway that night turned out to be entertaining after all and it was great to sit and watch the world go by,  laughing at it as it passed...

An Afternoon at the Pool

I went on most outings that there were on my language course. If I'd paid for a trip to Rome, of course I was going to go. There were some that cost a little extra, like the trip to see Madama Butterfly in Macerata, or the trip to the club, Babaloo on the Rimini coast. These were fun outings and the kind of thing you sign up to in the heat of the moment and don't give a second thought.

The whole ethic of the language course was to act now and think about it later - most people were wonderfully relaxed and relished not having responsibility. They loved living la dolce vita, spending break times in cafes, spending the evenings in bars, eating pizza and pasta, exploring beautiful places, making great friends, I could go on.

The experience was amazing, but sometimes all I longed for was a bit of peace and quiet: some time to explore on my own, take some time out to do my own thing. Though I loved the friends I'd made, I knew our friendship would probably benefit from taking five minutes out here and there.

To be honest, things in my house were getting a little frustrating. Gaby, now it transpired she was but-a-girl at 19, was acting her age more and more, and showing that she had no idea about communal living and respecting other people's needs in that situation. My bed was in the corner of the room, next to the wardrobe: she'd open the wardrobe doors to get her clothes out and then leave them open - cue me sitting in a tiny, darkened box, shut away from the world. She'd also leave her drawer open so that in order for me to get my stuff out, I'd have to ram her stuff back in said drawer before I could shut it and open mine.

Woh.

Poxy, I know, but it was the little things that really got to me: she'd bought all this food on our behalf, but had no idea how to cook it. I soon decided that we would cook for ourselves from then on. She would often stay out until the wee hours with friends from her class, and then stumble in drunk putting on all the lights possible and making as much noise as she could.

It was getting to the stage where if I didn't take some time out, I was going to spontaneously combust.

I was given a great opportunity to do just this. The school had arranged an afternoon at the pool for us in our third week. It wasn't free - we'd have to pay about 7Eur for the privilege and I'd forgotten my bikini bottoms. I could therefore go, but I'd have to sit on the side, or buy some pants, or borrow some pants - there is always a solution, but I couldn't be bothered with it.

Instead, I was scheming ways to get an afternoon to myself. Lovely.

My friends were really surprised when I said I wasn't going to go and they offered me all kinds of sweeteners, but my mind was made up. I waved them off on the bus and then wandered into a bookshop. I browsed. I browsed a lot. I was looking for English literature translated into Italian.

I love classic literature and so bought Orgoglioso e Pregiudizio (Pride & Prejudice) and Re Lear (King Lear). It was enough to whet my appetite. I went back to my apartment and then decided that I'd head down to the supermarket. I walked all the way down and all the way back up. It was a long slog and I didn't enjoy the last 500m because my arms were about to fall off, but still it was nice to do it on my own, without having to think about making polite small talk with someone else.

I got back to my apartment and then headed off to the deserted piazza to Skype my family. Not long after my friends arrived back. It turned out I hadn't missed very much at all. Ok so it had been fun, but I could tell they were secretly all jealous that I'd had some time alone.

So with all my chores done and the evening stretching out in front of me, I decided to arrange to meet my friends at a bar in the piazza that evening. I could tell my friends were all in need of a drink for different reasons that I was...

Internet-Gate

There's not doubting that Camerino is beautiful: Camerino, Rome, Assisi, Perugia, Frassassi, Porto Recanati, Macerata, Caldarola, all of it. You can understand, therefore, a) why I decided to take pictures at every opportunity, and b) why I felt I just had to share it with the wider world.

Ok, so I'm blogging about it - but it happened back in 2009, so quite a lot of time has passed since then. What I did in the heat of the moment was to write emails to my family and friends all about my time away. For this to happen I needed the internet. Fortunately the school had a number of computers connected to the internet in the main foyer; unfortunately the room was a complete sweatbox and the computers were all paintfully slow.

My solution came in the form of a brand-spanking new netbook I'd bought for my year abroad: it was portable, had a long battery life, and wireless internet. This meant I could sit in the main piazza (just outside the school) and construct these entertaining emails and Skype my family back in the UK. It was great to be able to share my experiences and catch up on what was going on at home.

There were two downsides to this: quite often many people serendipitously has the same idea and so there was no room to sit in the piazza, and sometimes it rained. I wracked my brain for an alternative and remembered that in my flat I was near the university buildings. Great! I'll just connect to their network.

So there I am chilling in the kitchen. I load up my computer and click on the internet connections. Yes! The university network is listed. Oh. You need a passcode. Oh. Bummer. Still, I asked at the school and they said I just needed to go to IT Services at the university and they'd sort it for me.

It's the start of the third week by the time this happens and to be honest, if it wasn't for the frequent thunderstorms that rendered Skyping in the piazza a bit of a bad idea, I'd have left it alone. Nevertheless, one break time I went down to IT Services and asked them to sort out my computer. There were a couple of guys hanging about and one of them got to sorting my netbook right away. The other seemed to just be chilling there for fun. I don't know what he was doing there during the summer, but he was harmless enough.

They fettled my netbook and I headed off back to the school. The hanger-on decided that IT Services wasn't as exciting as escorting a blonde English girl back into town. Nice. The other guy gave me a look as the offer to take me back into town was made, but I don't like hurting people's feelings so I agreed.

Now this is Italy where guys enjoy female company, but this guy was a bit more English - soppy, wet, not very interesting, certainly not an Italian stallion: I got rid of him before I even reached the main street. But Camerino is a small town and it's quite hard to avoid people. That said I like a challenge and spent the remaining fortnight ducking into alleyways, having loud conversations with my friends, and doing lots of ignoring.

It sounds cruel, but let me tell you it would have been much crueller to tell him exactly what I thought. We had plenty of outings planned over the next fortnight so as long as I could avoid him during the days, I'd be home and dry.

So after all that you would kind of think it was worth it because I got internet in my flat. Well I didn't - whatever they tried didn't work; I thought about going back and thought better of it - Skyping in the rain was a much more attractive prospect.

The Capital City (Part II)

I am currently outside the Pantheon in Rome, well not literally, but considering that my last post was about the first half of my Roman adventure, technically I am just outside the Pantheon about to continue with a guided tour of the capital city.

Our tour moved from the Pantheon to the Fontana dei Trevi made famous by Anita Ekberg who danced in it during Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita. Our tour guide was one of the tutors at the school but I get the distinct impression she had never been to Rome. The tutor that lectured us on Roman history would have been a fantastic tour guide, but he was unavailable so we got the next best thing, only this woman wasn't the next best thing, she spent most of the tour reading out Wikipedia.

Anyway, things wound up there quite abruptly - our guide decided that the rest of the day was ours to explore because she'd run out of Wikipedia notes, or something similar. This wasn't a bad thing because she wasn't giving us the best tour we'd ever had and to be honest, I just wanted to do a bit of sightseeing without seventy other people in tow.

First things first, however, we needed lunch so Lynette, Gaby, Bree and I went to MacDonalds. I may have introduced Susan into our group but she was keeping one of Camerino's locals busy. To this day I don't know why he'd come with us, but he took a shine to Susan and they decided to go round the city together.

So it was just four of us in MacDonalds and we had two very different ideas about what to do with the rest of the way. Now I was getting on really well with Gaby and Bree, but it was Lynette that wanted to do what I wanted. We hit a bit of a rough spot with this. As had happened in Perugia, we got our wires crossed and the easiest thing to do at that point is walk away.

Now I don't want to moan about my coursemates because I'm still really good friends with Bree even though years have passed since we last saw each other, but sometimes you hit a rough spot with someone and in the interests of community relations, it's a lot easier to take a deep breath, wave a cheery goodbye and then meet back at the coach at the end of the day.

Lynette and I, two lassies from Manchester, started to get to grips with Rome. Our first stop was the Spanish Steps and then we headed over to the Typewriter. The reason for the disagreement with Bree was that she wanted to use the tube and we didn't. The very last thing I wanted to do was go and stand in a sweatbox like the Pantheon, but underground: on a hot, airless day like it was, the aim is to spend as much of it as possible out in the open. Bree maintained it would be too hard to get everywhere we wanted and walk, but I was sure it wasn't too much of a distance to cover.

Anyway we reached the Typewriter and headed down to the Colosseum. We'd seen such a mis-match of time periods and architecture during the day that it was only fitting we saw some real Roman stuff at some point. The road down to the Colosseum is long and so we chatted, paused every now and then and took our time to get there because we still had quite a lot of time left before we had to meet at Termini Station.

We didn't go in the Colosseum - it was quite pricey and I wanted to see a bit more of the city before heading back. We headed up round the back of the Colosseum, where I thought it was a good time to jump, and then we started walking back to the station - via the odd shop or two along the way.

We got back to the station quite early and ran into Susan and her new friend. We went to one of the cafes in the station and got something to eat. I wasn't very hungry - I never seemed to be despite all the walking and touring I'd been doing. After that we headed to the place the coach would pick us up from. Bree and Gaby were there after spending the day with some of the Portuguese crowd and they were full of what they'd done. They'd had fun - to be honest they'd not done a lot more or less than what we'd done, but they'd enjoyed it nonetheless.

On the way home I was thankful that Sunday was a day of rest.

The Capital City (Part I)

We got on the coach early Saturday morning so that we could head on down to Rome. We stopped at an underground car park before heading into the city itself. The reason for our stop was to drop off those who were only staying two weeks on the language course and so would be flying out of Rome at the same time as we would be doing our sightseeing.

We got rid of our friend from the Lebanon (I use friend loosely) and I wasn't disappointed he wouldn't be with us for the rest of the course. We carried on, past the venue for the world diving championships where my Room 101 (Tom Daley) won gold, and arrived at the Vatican.

 The coach dropped us off just in front of the Basilica and we piled off into the sizzling heat of midday. It was stunning - such a sight to behold. We wandered round the piazza and were given about half an hour if we wanted to go inside, if not we could find somewhere to sit before the tour began. Bree, Gaby, Lynette and I circumvented the fountains, taking pictures along the way.

Lynette and I eventually decided that we wanted to go inside the Basilica and so we joined the queue. Sorry, I mean the mass of thronging people. We got ourselves into some sort of order, but there was an Italian lady behind us that didn't enjoy being behind us. She kept trying to push her way forward until Lynette finally lost her rag and shouted at the woman: 'C'e' una fila!' (Or 'there's a queue' to you).

We hit a slow spot and Lynette decided that together with trying to keep this woman behind her, she'd also put on some trousers because of the whole 'don't show your knees' thing they have going on. We got into the Basilica and it took my breath away. I know I've complained in the past about the OTT nature of Catholic churches, but tecnically St Peter's Basilica is THE Catholic Church so I can excuse it there. It was just magnificent. Everything about it was beautiful: the attention to detail was just incredible. We stayed there for some time and then made our way out to join the party for our tour of Rome.

We went past the Pope's digs - made famous by Angels and Demons amongst other things, and headed away from the Vatican and into town. We passed through so many beautiful piazzas (the one to my left happened to have a sprinkler system whereby passers-by could get quite a welcome shower under the hot Roman sun).

Our next stop was the Pantheon: the oldest church in Rome. Now for those of you that have seen Angels and Demons you'll remember that the Pantheon was almost deserted when Robert Langdon and his Italian friend go on their search for the 'Path of Light' or whatever it's actually called. This is completely unrealistic. I would have gone in, but most of the rest of the world was in there and though I don't suffer from claustrophobia, I didn't want to get involved in the sweatbox that was currently going down inside.

What was more interesting was the spectacle outside: some faux Roman soldiers having their pictures taken with tourists for money. They were about as faux as you get and so I began to take stealth pictures of the one that had just lit up and was smoking a fag on the sly.

I was never cut out for MI5 because as stealthy as I thought I was being, I wasn't being stealthy enough because he clocked me, walked over, gave my camera to a friend and insisted they took a picture of us. My friends found this hilarious, and I confess I did too. Rome was proving to be a lot of fun...

Life's a Beach!

After two evenings out so far in week two, what we really needed was some R&R at the beach. This is just what was in store for us on Friday afternoon. We endured classes in the morning - some of us with pounding headaches (largely the result of vats of wine the night before); we donned our bikinis and headed to Porto Recanati on the Rimini coast.

There was an initial disagreement as to where we would all go once we hit the beach, and then what we would do there. It soon transpired that if we wanted to sunbathe we'd have to pay for sunloungers and the like; if we wanted to go to the free beach we'd have to contest with a whole pile of shingly rocks. Some of our party wanted to play football, I looked at the stones and thought it would probably be a lot better for my feet if I didn't (there was also the minor problem of not being able to play football).

What I really wanted to do was sunbathe, but I wasn't paying for the privilege. This seemed to be quite a popular belief and so Bree, Gaby, Lynette, her housemate and myself started trawling the coastline for either a nice free beach or a cafe.

At this point I think it's time for me to bring Lynette's housemate out of anonymity and introduce her to you as Susan. Ever since Perugia our acquaintance had been growing and we'd formed an alliance in class against Wendy and her bizarre teaching and even more bizarre games. Susan had been there at Babaloo and the Castle and she was with us again at the beach.

I got on really well with her. I confess I hadn't been sure at first, but we'd got to know each other over the week and we'd really started to get to know each other and found we had a lot of common interests. She was originally from Croatia and was mostly legs.

So the full desperate gang walked along the seafront scouring cafes and bars for available tables. We found one and got settled. We stayed there for some time, singing German songs (don't ask) and learning miscellaneous Portuguese phrases (again, let's not go there). Time wore on and we decided to venture into the town for a wander. We wandered prolifically and soon wandered into a restaurant for dinner.

It had been the first trip we'd done that was really up to us to do whatever. All the other trips had had guided tours and tight schedules. This one was the first one where we'd been dumped and told to come back when it got dark.

We feasted on pizza and wound our way back to the coach stop, but not before taking a comical picture that said something on cross-cultural relations...

Bevilo Tutto!

I soon realised that though there were many excursions included on our language course - so far we'd been to the Frassassi Caves, Assisi and Perugia all included in our initial fee - we'd also been on our fair share of trips out of our own pockets: a trip to the opera at Macerata, a night out at Babaloo, Bree and Gaby had even been to Venice. Now these trips were optional, but if everyone else was going, you didn't really feel as if you had very much of an option at all. This was also the case for our next evening out: to the Castello di Caldorola.

In all fairness I did want to go, I just didn't know I'd have to pay for it. It was advertised in the course leaflet as Thursday's trip out and we were all looking forward to having a tour of the castle, followed by dinner there as well. It had all the hallmarks of being a really special evening, so we considered it worth shelling out for.

Bree didn't come to Babaloo and it was a shame; the rest of the gang was there, but she missed out. Fortunately she agreed to come to the castle and so off we went with Gaby and Lynette as well. It took a little while to get there, and then a walk up quite a steep hill, but we made it in the end (despite a lot of the girls having dressed up for the evening in their highest tottery heels).

The group had to split into two for the tour. Lynette, her housemate and Gaby all got in with the first group, Bree and I brought up the rear afterwards. Normally, Gaby would have come with us, but she had started to befriend her classmates and consequently spent half her time with them, and half with us.

The castle was typical of other continental castles - big houses. Whenever British people think of a castle, they think of a fortress; if you ask the same thing to a Frenchman, they think of regal houses and classic architecture. This is the same type of castle you get in Italy. Admittedly they are beautiful buildings, but it's got nothing on Conway Castle which covers a large part of Wales.

The interior of the castle was also different from UK equivalents in that there was one. Britain tends to pride itself on the fact that when visiting its castles, even if you tour the inside, you'll still need your umbrella. Caldorola was much more like D'Annunzio's house that I'd visited on the shores of Lake Garda: full of stuff. And expensive stuff at that.

Anyway, we had a wander round, listening to a tour guide rabbit on about past-owners, conflict, how they kept it warm, and other such useless information that doesn't even help in pub quizzes. It was nice, I confess, but I felt like I'd seen it all before - it's like going in one small provincial Catholic Church in one town and then going in another somewhere else - they all tend to look the same.

After we'd had a look at the castle, we were all deposited in the grounds while our meal was prepared. Ironically both tours had finished at the same time despite starting quite a long way apart - I think our disinterest was tangible and our tour guide knew when she was beaten.

We were called up together for dinner. I was sitting with Bree on one side and Lynette on the other. The meal wasn't dissimilar to the stuff I'd had in my orientation week in Sanremo, but this time it was a lot nicer. I was reunited with a familiar foe - 5L vats of wine. I'd seen them last disappearing over a pier wall towards the sea on the last night of orientation.

I don't like wine - and certainly not wine that's mass-produced on such a large scale. Anyway, some of my coursemates weren't as picky... We started with a large dish of pasta and pesto. Our table got through most of it and there was a bit left: Lynette and I polished it off. They brought another platter of pasta. Lynette and I exchange a worried glance, but still we dig in. Collectively we manage to polish that one off too. They bring a platter of meat and vegetables: this is becoming a farce.

Needless to say that at the end of the meal, we were stuffed and no matter how much we drunk, we would not get even slightly tipsy because it would all get absorbed by a vast amount of pasta. Though Lynette and I had been applying this piece of philosophy, Gaby had not. Bree drank occasionally, but that night wasn't one of those occasions; Lynette drank, but the aforementioned food consumption meant that she would have to down one of the entire vats before she got drunk.

It was therefore left to Gaby to embarrass us all and get completely bladdered. She didn't let us down. It transpires there is a song in Italy that goes through all the months of the year and when it gets to the month you were born in, you stand up (as the song dictates) and then you, well, 'bevilo tutto' - you drink it all. So we worked our way through the months of the year and when it got to Gaby's month she downed a large glass of red wine - like properly chugged it down.

Not long after she was a drunken mess. The previous night at Babaloo we'd discovered she was only 19, and not a lot older (as she liked people to think): the cap fitted - young, immature, eager to impress...

The dancing started after tea and we danced quite a lot of the night away with a spot of kareoke thrown in for fun. Quite a few people were comatosed on the way home and unsurprisingly, there were a few empty seats in class the next morning...

Dance the Night Away

The second week of our language course wasn't initially that eventful in terms of trips. We'd had another one of our exciting culture lectures, but apart form that, life in Camerino had ebbed to quite a pedestrian pace. After a busy first week this was actually a welcome surprise and in view of the busy schedule over the next fortnight, taking some time off to study and do, quite frankly, what we'd gone there to do, made a lot of sense.

Still there are always exceptions to this atom of logic and the school organised a trip one evening to Babaloo, a club on the Rimini coast. If enough people went then it would make it worth their while to get a coach and when questioned, the majority of people were up for it. I was in that majority.

Bree wasn't. If she didn't have a skirt for the opera, she probably didn't have a dress for a club. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this. I will fully admit to going because most other people were and I didn't want to miss out on anything. I've never been a party animal, but after a week of doing not very much, it was nice to go out and let me hair down, so to speak.

We met at the bus station and piled on the coach - us at the back as usual. It was going to take about an hour and a half to get there, so we settled down for what was to be quite a long ride before the party could start. Most people were quite reserved and were saving any boozing until we got to the club - this made for probably the slowest start to a party in living history.

We all stumbled out of the coach at the club - not because we were drunk, but because we were really sleepy; there's nothing that will induce a state of drowsiness quite like a long coach trip at night. We had left at ten to arrive at midnight. To put this into context, I like to go to bed at 10pm.

The first thing we did when we reached the club was to head to the bar - we needed something that would perk us up a little. Wait. Drinks are 10Eur each. Each. EACH! I suppose it was free entry. I thought I could do without. Lynette buckled and her housemate pressganged someone into buying drink for her. Handy.

Anyway, this matter dealt with, we started to get acclimatised with our surroundings.

First of all, it was out in the open. There was a large building that looked like a house and a courtyard area as soon as you got through the gates. There were plush leather seats and lots of palm trees and the like - it was very swish. The house-like building had several rooms - two main areas and plenty of chillaxing space with more leather seats. The whole place was built on the edge of a lake and at the end of a jetty was a salsa hut.

It was a fantastic place. The music wasn't my scene really, but it was great to go and get out and do some dancing. Things didn't really pick up for a few hours. Bearing in mind we got there at midnight and left at three, it was only 2'o'clock that things started hotting up and there was any real atmosphere to speak of. After the first hour we were considering going and sitting on the coach until we had to leave. Fortunately we didn't do this.

So we sat for a while, then we moved to the salsa tent. For anyone that's every seen me dance, I can't really do it and certainly not salsa. I was wearing flat shoes and I had a wayward bag - this was not a recipe for much fun. Still I kept calm and carried on and after sitting awhile some more, the Camerino gang reassembled itself and we danced the last hour away and even convinced the bus driver to let us stay an extra half hour.

We were back very late that night and I walked back to our house with Gaby. She was a little out of sorts and it turned out there had been an incident with one of the guys on the course. He'd made a move, she didn't want him to, the poo had hit the fan, yady-yady-yah.

At the time this happened, she was still in love with her English sort-of-boyfriend and she was incandescant with rage at the very thought that her coursemate would make a move on her. This made me take a certain dislike to this guy, but I soon found out this was ever-so slightly misplaced, but we'll deal with that when we come to it.

So I went to sleep that morning and let's just say when Wendy rolled out whatever nonsense we were learning in class, I was less than receptive...