Noisy car

Well as Beth has stayed in the same city for a couple of days, there have been no travel problems for me to resolve.  It appears that she hooked up with a few people from the hostel to wander around Rome which is probably a very good idea.  Unfortunately whilst they were on the train into the city, there were lots of Romany children swarming around and generally being a nuisance.  This seems to have been a distraction technique and resulted in one of the males in the group being relieved of his phone, which she said had put them all on edge.  Apparently Beth was hugging her bag to her chest all the way.  Thank goodness.
Our car has been making expensive sounding noises for some time - whenever we went over a bump in the road a creaking or scraping sound was heard.  I was afraid that the suspension was in trouble so eventually we bit the bullet and took it into the garage for investigation.  We were somewhat relieved when the mechanic said that they couldn't find anything wrong, except that the covering for something had come loose and worked its way out of place catching against something else (possibly the wheel arch, but I can't be sure) so they had just cut it off and thought that it would do the trick.  We were in high spirits as we drove home, thinking that we had been spared an expensive  repair.  
The very next time we drove over a speed bump - there was the sound again - grr.
Not sure what to do now.

Mia figlia - il Viaggiatore

Today's communications started at around 9.45 with a phone call - "I just booked a reservation on the train to Rome and the guy has given me a reservation for a seat on the train leaving at 3pm, I asked for the next train, which leaves at 10.59" - remember that Rome is one hour ahead of us at the moment.  My response to that is the usual - "why are you telling me - what can I do from here?"  The searingly honest answer came back - "nothing but I just wanted someone to whine at" 
So - I suggested that she should either go back to the guy who sold her the reservation or grab someone else who looks as though they work at the station and explain her problem, but of course she only had a few minutes to do this in.  Shortly thereafter a text arrived, "all sorted" 
 Next text - "pray for some miracles today" , my response - "why?  Do you have to make connections?"  
"Yes"
"you do actually realise that you are in Italy don't you?"  
"Yes, that is why I need miracles"
An hour later "hey, I got the miracles."

A couple of hours later whilst I was in town I had a missed call.  I never heard it, nor did I feel it vibrating in my pocket. For some reason I needed my phone just after she had rung and I found the missed call.  It was yet another plea for help - no surprises there then - the tablet wasn't working and she didn't know the address of the hostel, could I go into her emails and find it for her.  I could remember all of it except the post code, so gave her that until I was home.  Once home I was able to give her not only the address, but also the name of the Metro station close to the hostel.  Before I could do that however, I had received yet another text which made me smile " Thieves everywhere!  Trying to get money off you for "showing" you how to use the machine.  I have never felt less guilt for shouting at a child"  That one text message told me just how tired she is.   I must remind her not to let anyone push a flower into her hand at the Spanish Steps, because she may lose it with the men who do that and then hold out their hands for money.

In some ways I envy her, but I also feel very sad for her.  I envy her the freedom and the opportunity to travel in this way, but I feel sad for her because she is seeing so many wonderful sights and isn't able to share them with anyone.  For me part of the joy of Rome was to share it with my husband as we were travelling together.  It is a city of such contrasts, great antiquity and alternatively great modern buildings, great wealth and great poverty.  I also hope that she has got very comfortable shoes with her because it is a city which is very hard on the feet.  Gosh I remember blisters on my blisters - that was so painful.

Further tribulations of the traveller

OK so yesterday seemed to go well for my only child of the female persuasion.  By that I mean that I didn't get any phone calls demanding my help.  That was yesterday ...

By 8.20 this morning I had had three phone calls.  Admittedly I had missed two of them.  On the third occasion she rang on the land line to say that intermittent internet connection was once again causing problems.  She had had an email from the hostel she is booked into in Rome advising her that she needed to contact them urgently otherwise she would lose her booking.   It is Easter week in Rome after all and they could have let her place many times over.  The city is usually packed out out over Easter and  I imagine the (Catholic) world and his wife want a chance  to glimpse the new pope etc.  Not surprisingly the hostel wanted a deposit for her dorm bed.  The trouble was that she had managed to get a glimpse of the email but the internet connection wouldn't stay long enough for her to deal with it, so Mum needed to sort things out.  I managed to text her their phone number, email them to say that she would be in touch and provide the usual reassurances.
Later I got an email from the hostel to say that she had been in touch by phone and all was well.  I wonder what is coming my way next...

Prodigal daughter

My dear daughter has been spending the third year of her degree course in Germany.  She has been working in a gymnasium as a language assistant, helping to instil a better quality of English into the students.  Hmm, I hope it is a case of do as I say, not as I do.

She decided to spend the Easter holidays interrailing around Europe with a friend.  Well that was the original intention, as things turned out, the friends she intended going with found that life intervened and they were unable to go.  She was left with two options – the first was to decide not to go and the second was to go alone.  To her great merit, and my discomfort, she chose the first option - she’s a brave girl.   

Did I say she was brave?  On day one she caught a train early in the morning, heading for Nurmenberg, from where she was to take a coach (why?  I thought this was called interrailing for a reason) to Prague.  She hadn’t been on the train for an hour before she rang me in tears, sobbing uncontrollably, because she was miserable and overwhelmed.  I tried being sympathetic, but that doesn’t help greatly, in my experience, the more sympathetic I am to her, the more upset she gets.  Eventually I pointed out that she had made the choice to go on her own, and that from now her options were limited.  She could either carry on with the trip on her own or she could change direction and come home for Easter, but whichever choice she made, she needed to stop crying as she was making herself much more vulnerable by doing it.  Many people seeing her upset would offer to help and not everyone would be doing it for altruistic reasons.  Whilst it is sad to be suspicious of people with good intentions, a single girl travelling to several European cities on her own cannot afford to take chances.

Eventually when she got on the coach from Nuremburg to Prague she fell asleep.  The worst of problems looks so much better after a good sleep and my guess is that she didn’t sleep well the night before she started out.   By the time she arrived in Prague she was feeling much better, and our Skype conversation that evening was much more positive thank goodness.

She enjoyed Prague the next day, posting a photo of a humungous cup of coffee which she had bought to warm herself up.  It was so large, I queried whether she was intending to drink it or bathe in it. 

All was so much better I began to relax and think that things would progress more smoothly.

Ha ha ha ha

That will teach me.

From Prague she travelled to Vienna and from there to Salzburg.  Her idea was to spend a day in Salzburg and then take the night train to Venice.  It would have worked fine, if she had only read the timetable properly, and arrived at the railway station at the time the train was due to leave, rather than the time it was supposed to arrive at its destination!   Then something apparently went awry with the night train to Venice and it was no longer a viable option.  That meant getting on an earlier train which would arrive in Venice around midnight, and booking a room in a hostel for that night.   Easy.  Wrong, not easy – the hostel was booked up.  There was no wifi on the train “they lied to  me Mum”  which necessitated a phone call to Mum, “can you book me a hotel in Venice?”  Yes of course – that isn’t difficult – a hotel for the price of a hostel, on the same day and in Venice – yeah I can do that!  Amazingly – I could!  I sent her the details and she booked it.   I can’t claim to have been comfortable for her to be walking around a strange city at midnight but it couldn’t be helped.  Then I got another phone call about 11pm our time, midnight in Italy, to say the train was delayed and she was worried that she would lose her hotel room, so I had to email the hotel and let them know about the delay.  Then 45 minutes later yet another call, she had arrived but didn’t know how to get to the hotel and the battery for her tablet had run out of power, so I had to text details to her.  Finally I got a text at 01.05 to say that she had arrived “safe and sound” at last I could go to sleep – thank goodness!

She has been at this for less than a week, and there are another two weeks to go, - will we survive?  Oh my.