Bologna and Beginnings
Recent weeks have felt like a new beginning after too many consecutive endings. It was the end of my time at Waterstones, which was somehow both a lovely experience and also comfortably the shittest period of my life. I owe a lot to the fantastic bunch of people that I worked with, who I’ll refrain from complementing further in case they read this.
Talking to people about what I’m heading off to do has been difficult, because I’m not entirely sure myself. First and foremost I’m here to do a week of teaching in a summer camp on Lake Maggiore:
…which naturally I couldn’t turn down. Hopefully it’ll lead to a more permanent position, but it looks like the standards are pretty high, so we’ll see. If I don’t get that I have one or two other options, but at the moment it’s helping to have a one-track mind and focus on getting the position that I want. If it all works out, I’ll have a period of nearly three months free, which seems like the perfect opportunity to see a few of the places that I’ve always wanted to, while travelling at my own pace.
But all that is uncertain. The only concrete part of this trip is the next few weeks in the north of Italy. So here I am.
Booking a hostel in Bologna was an interesting experience, since it’s apparently standard for a reception to only be open for an hour or two per day. Shortly after I first booked a room, I was sent an email saying I could only check in between 11 and 1. If you’re late I suppose you just find a comfy slab of concrete and adopt a fetal position for the next 22 hours. It certainly stands in sharp contrast to China, where receptionists stand to rapt attention at 4 in the morning doing jumping jacks and singing the national anthem backwards. So I cancelled the first hotel and booked another one with a 2–4 window that seemed more manageable.
Predictably, my flight was delayed. I had less than an hour to get from the airport to my room in time for 4, but I found the right bus stop and the next bus turned the corner just as I arrived. Of course, the driver then got out to have a spectacularly languorous fag while staring directly into the eyes of the sweaty tourists piling up behind me. But you know what, the man did his job and I got to the hostel on time.
The owner of the hostel, amazingly, was late, but he did eventually turn up and let me in. The first thing I saw was a kettle and teabags, which thoroughly exceeded expectations, so this seems like a good spot to relax for a few days before I get stuck into the madness of a new job. We chatted for a while about the city and its people, and like always I was struck at just how relaxed Italians are, especially when talking to complete strangers. Then he showed me to my room and oh boy, what a room it was:
I turned, ready to viciously debate the interrelationship between beauty and happiness, but sadly he was gone.
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So: Four days in Bologna, entirely without plan, entirely by myself. It’s embarrassing to admit how much I’ve looked forward to this thin transitional window. I’ve always wanted to do some travelling by myself and somehow never managed it, not even for a few days. Perhaps I’ll hate it, and perhaps there’s a reason that the first thing I did when I got here is write something for people back home, but I’m willing to give it a try. Once I’m done with teaching summer camp, the plan is to go interrailing proper, until either I run out of money or the receptionists of Europe run out of patience. I’d like to do some actual writing while I’m here, and I like the idea of setting a story in each place that I visit, and hopefully building it up to a collection.
Of course, if I didn’t manage to write much while I was working in a bookshop, it seems unlikely that I’ll manage to write much while I’m on holiday. So I’ve put it in writing here, to try and shame my future self into getting it done. Here’s hoping.
