We arrived off the Eurostar from Rome, hungry to just get the hell out of Brindisi as soon as possible. Unfortunately, there were no boats that day, so we had to spend a night here. The main street wasn't too bad, but it's fair to say that there's nothing to do but wait in Brindisi. We found a hotel that overlooked the safety of MacDonald's, and only left to check our emails and go to the supermarket. We had Pizza for supper (after a strange conversation with the dialect-speaking Italian in the shop). Went to bed in front of the TV.
We had to be up and waiting at the port's complimentary bus by 9:30AM, sharpish! So we arrived there in the company of a small ginger nerd (Neil) and his slightly disturbed girl companion (Sarah). And we waited. And waited. And waited some more. Eventually we were let into the minibus by a taxi-driver. During this time, our 2 new friends told us of the idyllic 'Sun Rock' and tried to persuade us to stay there, rather than at the much acclaimed Pink Palace (otherwise there was strong chance that we would die from a moped accident). We later found out that (suprise, suprise: they were employees of the Sun Rock, and liked the Pink Palace as much as I love Spurs). Nevertheless, we decided to chance it, and didn't speak to them ever again.
At this point, a man with a huge afro poked his head inside the mini-bus door and declared:
"I like jazz" . He was accompanied by a man not disimilar to Judge Reinhold, but with a truly outrageous neck-beard. Lastly was a small, furry wee man (also with a truly outrageous neck-beard). He introduced the group:
"Hi everyone! We're Toronto Jews!" Well, he didn't really say that, but I can't remember what they really said, so I'm just making this up as I go along. Anything wrong with that? Good. They were called Andrew, Zack and Dani.
Eventually, we did set off towards the port, and we noticed just how many Canadians there had been in Europe this Spring. Every single one of them with the Canadian flag neatly sewn onto his/her backpack.
We settled at a table on the deck, and got comfortable for the 7 hour journey. We were joined midway through our cruise by another Canadian, calling himself Mike.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah! Heading for the Pink Palace. Party! Woo!" The next few days would be a lot of fun.
