And One for Backwoods Ingenuity
We had an early train to Palermo. This makes sense, because it’s fucking LONG. It’s a nine hour train ride. At one point, the train slowed down. Will and I realized that it was pulling into a boat. Yes, that’s right, a train-boat. The boat had rails for the train, and once it parked, we disembarked.
On the boat was a salon-type thing where they sold food. They had these little Barilla microwave pasta cups. I tried to order bolognese for Will and pomodoro for me. The man explained that they only had arrabiata. We ate arrabiata. We got back on the train for the remainder of our nine hour journey.
Eventually, we made it to Palermo. We were exhausted and had no map, so we took a cab to the hostel. It was actually pretty cheap. When we got into our room, there were two French girls there. Their names were Clotilde and Camille, and they were complimentary opposites. Clotilde was short, extremely talkative, and high-energy. Camille was tall, gorgeous, and quiet. They had just gotten in from a very delayed flight, and they were starving. I asked if they wanted to get dinner with us, and they did.
The four of us went to a pizza place next door and ordered four pizzas to split among us. At one point, Will left to go do health forms for NOLS or something. Camille, Clotilde, and I went to a bar next door to have a few drinks while Will finished up the forms. The plan was to go rage after. This was where I learned another difference between Camille and Clotilde. Though high-energy, Clotilde tired easily. She didn’t seem to want to go out. Camille, while quiet, was ready to go. Every time we passed a bar playing dance music, Camille started dancing while we walked. She was also the only one who pounded beers with me. She was fun. I liked her.
An hour or two had gone by, and Will hadn’t come down. I went to go fetch him. I was not surprised to see him in bed asleep. We had the following exchange:
Me: Will, get up. It’s time to go out.
Will: No. Sleeping.
Me: Will, you said you were going to rage. Get up.
Will: No, go away.
Me: Will, there are two beautiful French girls waiting for you to come down. Come on. Let’s go.
Will: Have them both. Not my type.
Me: *sigh*
Will: *roll over towards wall*
I went back downstairs and explained that Will would not be joining us. Clotilde said she was probably going to bed. I suggested we find a dance party. Camille agreed. The three of us went looking, and we ran into a whole bunch of French dudes from Montpellier. They said they were heading to a karaoke bar. The fact that there were more French people seemed to interest Clotilde, and Camille and I wanted to do karaoke.
I was the only American in the entire place. Other than me, it was a LOT of French people and a few Italians. Luckily, most of the karaoke was American music. Here, Camille confirmed my assumption that she was awesome because she sang “Summer Loving” from Grease with me. I always wanted to do that.
Eventually, it was time for the bar to close. However, we all wanted to keep going. The French dudes invited us to their (far away) hotel. Camille and Clotilde wanted to go, so I figured, “Eh, adventure. Why not?” There was one French dude in the group named Florian or something (he went by “Flor”), and he refused to speak to me in English. He insisted on Spanish, French, or nothing. He claimed that English was “una idioma de mierda” (a shit-language, or, literally, a language of shit). Will said I should have asked him if he’d rather be speaking German. Hohoho.
The “party” at the French hotel was non-existent. Camille, Clotilde, and I decided to get the hell out of there. The Frenchies gave us a bottle of beer for our time, but we had no way to open it. I realized that a bus shelter is really nothing more than a large bottle opener and opened the bottle. The beer wasn’t half bad.
I somehow found our way back to the hostel. Yay.
Will’s Corner
Priorities. I have them.
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Dear Joe,
You can be our summer love any day.
Love,
Will and Andy
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