Back in February we had come here for the weekend and enjoyed freezing temperatures and ice-cold drizzle. As we approached Pavia's train station we sensed that it would be much the same this time around. Having fallen off the train onto the miniscule platform, we exited the station looking for our hostess Shamila and her boyfriend Ce (or Zia Shami and Zio Franny to us - Auntie and Uncle to all you plebs). Ted had studied in Pavia in his year abroad and has known Zia Shami since the age of 17.
"Dove sono i bambini?" Asked Ce.
"Follow the yellow football. Oh God." Shami replied. She was obviously pleased to see us again. Our bags were tossed into Zio Franny's boot, and we partook of our first car journey for a month, back to Zia Shami's flat.
Although warm and very much appreciated, Shami's flat just wasn't designed to hold two excess walrus-like fatties. Therefore, our sleeping arrangements were thus:
Ted slept on the floor in the girls' room, whilst I slept on the futon in the kitchen. In the morning when it would be necessary for the work-goers to use the kitchen, I would be moved (heaved if need be) to a now vacant bed - resulting in a spatial puzzle which most mornings left me bamboozled. But alas, it was approaching 3 o'clock and we still hadn't lunched.
"mmmm...Biiig Maaac...mmmm' orgasmed Ted from a dream-like state. Still mopping the steady flow of dribble creeping from Ted's mouth, Shamila spotted our plight.
"Poor little obese idiots. I haven't got much to give you for lunch, so how does beans on toast and fried egg sound?" At this, the dam that I had constructed over Ted's mouth (consisting of a back-pack liner and a waterproof jacket) gave way, and the steady flow became a torrent of Saliva, and the kitchen was temporarily flooded. Shami swam to the window and opened it, allowing the escape of the vast majority off the drool from her apartment. Clever girl.
Having successfully demolished our hostess' supply of beans, we were then taken to Dublino's - Pavia's premiere Irish pub for an Appertivo. We reacquainted ourselves with the creme de la creme of Pavian society, well, Ce's friends. There was little Rosalino and his fiance Laura, Paolo (the spitting image of Arsenal's Brazilian star - Edu), Ce and Shami, Sara (Shami's flatmate) along with one of her many man friends - this one being Football Italia's James Richardson, and the Psycho Irish bar manager, Keith.
After a couple of pints of the black stuff, it had been far too much excitement for one day. We returned to the flat to eat some delicious oven ready pizza, and chat into the early morning about life at home, Shamila's crazy Dad, Ce's mood swings and about the meaning of life in general. Oh, and also the meaning of the Police's well known lyrics Doo-Doo-Doo, Da-Da-Da.
This was supposed to be our first relaxing day of the travels. And so it would have been, had it not been for the walking involved to the places that would help us to relax (i.e. the supermarket, launderette etc). Instead, at about 7:30, I was awoken by a strangely unfamiliar voice:
"Wiiiiiill, can you go..." her English wasn't quite good enough to finish the sentence.
"No. You can't make me. This is my bed. I'll fight you for it."
"No! I meeeeean go to the other beeed!" I now half opened my eye to see Sara, the other inhabitant of the flat, beckoning me to her bed. Not to join her, sadly, but to get out of the way and stop blocking the kitchen door. And so I slept. And slept some more.
After a gargantuan 11-hour sleeping binge we went to Essalunga (the local supermarket and hang out for Granny Tuffs) to buy some crap. Having not been in a big supermarket yet on this trip, we found ourselves going a bit mad. We left with 100 grammes of Parma ham, 2 large onion focaccias, a bottle of fizzy pop, an inflatable bed (and pump - for Ted), some strawberries, and a small boy.
"Will, is this your small boy?"
"No. I've never seen him before"
"Go on then, shoo!" And with that, he ran away. Ah, it was shop til you drop (or at least til you get bored). We took the foot back to the flat and gorged ourselves on the mighty feast, and then felt sick. After a few hours resuscitation, we set up Ted's new bed, and met Ce for coffee in town. We were also joined by Paolo, who informed us that
"I would like a nice ice, twice." After this, we whisked ourselves off to Milan to watch the mighty Arsenal take on Bolton. We did so in the strangely named 'football English pub' and bought 2 pints of expensive Guinness.
As per usual, there were other Arsenal fans afoot. Two AliG alikes, who said 'innit?' a lot, and two of the strangest people I have ever met.
Julius was a German student living in Milan, but studying in England (or something like that), and his friend was an Israeli called ... something... I forget, but it was a very silly name. Anyway, he kept shouting traditional Arsenal chants such as:
"My old man said be a Tottenham fan, I said 'f**k off bo***cks, you're a c**t!' Quite shocked at how much of an international fan base we were amongst, we enjoyed the evening immensely, seeing as Arsenal beat Bolton 2-0 (for those of you who are interested, goals by Freddie Ljungberg and Wiltord), and were 1 win away from the title. We decided that we would come back here for the FA Cup final on Saturday. As we left, our new Israeli friend screamed
"Spurs are f**cking c***s!"
"I agree!" we replied.
In the end, we arrived back at Pavia at about 1 AM, and hit the sack straight away. After about an hour of sack hitting, we went to bed (hahaha! God, I'm funny!).
We arose at 5:30AM with the intention of going to Venice. Having realised what fools we were, we went back to sleep. At about 10, we got up and decided that now was the time to go, and set off on our journey to Venice, via Milan.
We returned at about 9PM and bought the best Chinese food in the world from one of the biggest hotties I've ever seen. Absolutely exhausted, we hit the sack and then went to bed.
Today was Theme Park day for the third and final time of the trip, destination: Gardaland!
We returned home happy but tired, and rented a video starring West Ham's Paolo di Canio (it's not as strange as it sounds).
Another day trip day, and the lucky town to grace our presence was Verona. Waking up at 8, we caught the train to Milan (to give Shami the flat keys), and then used our interrail tickets (for about the millionth time) for the journey to Verona.
We arrived back from our trip soaking, and in need of pizza.
This was another day 'off'. A visit to Essalunga saw us buy too much food (what a shame), and again leave with a small boy concealed in one of the shopping baskets. After dumping him in the playground, we went back to Shami's for, as they would say in the Beano, 'a right good slap-up feast'. We then checked the Internet, and did, well, not much really.
FA CUP FINAL DAY! May the 4th be with you! We headed out early to get the shopping done so that we could have Sunday lunch tomorrow, and then went straight to Milan with Ce. We headed for the 'football English pub', but the place was absolutely packed with football fans. We drank a lot of Guinness, which contributed to the emotion of a very tense match. Ray Parlour and Freddie Ljungberg made it 2-0 to the Arsenal, and started the celebrations among the majority of the watchers in the pub. We even got Zio Franny singing Arsenal songs (him being a Juve fan, that was very strange). The only bad thing was a giant Chelsea fan who started to get quite violent, meaning that we had to be slightly less celebratory than we should have been. We had a Mac Maestro's Mountain of magnificent mcnuggets, and made our way back to Pavia. YEEEEEEEEEEES! First trophy in 4 years! Soon it could be the double.
We went back to Shami's flat and dreamed sweet Arsenal dreams.
A nice lazy, Sunday started with coffee, and was supposed to culminate with Sunday lunch. But thanks to my lack of cooking expertise, the potatoes took longer than expected, and lunch took place at 3. It was delicious however, and even Zio Franny was stealing potatoes wherever he could - it was just like being back home.
It was also the last day of the Italian football season, and seeing as Arsenal had won a trophy yesterday, it was only fair that Juve should win one today. Against the odds, Juve won the scudetto, and we all went out to celebrate (in a town which is 2 and a half hours drive from Turin - makes sense, doesn't it?). All of the town's vast array of glory supporting Juve-tuffs were out celebrating in the central square (along with a Juve tractor). We'd never seen Ce so happy. He was smiling and talking positively! Wow! We rented Dogma (in English!), and after a celebratory pint in Dublino's, we all finished the day with full bellies and happy thoughts.
Another day, another town. We headed to Milan, with the objective of going to Bologna.
This was our last evening in Pavia, so we celebrated by going to a really nice Chinese restaurant and misbehaving with Rosalino. We were later joined Dr Evil, Edu and Huey from the Fun Loving Criminals (Ce, Paolo and Toro). We said our goodbyes to them, and invited them to have a 'lad's holiday' in England and come and visit us in Bath during the summer.
We gathered all our rapidly expanding stuff, and headed to Milan, where we emotionally said goodbye to Auntie Shami, and invited her to come and stay amongst the cows with us during the summer. We thanked her profusely and boarded the train bound for Florence just in time.
Rosalino (for being Martin Short)
Laura (for putting up with Rosalino for so long)
Toro (for believing our stories about English public school girls)
Paolo (for being Edu)
Steve Guttenberg (how did that get in there?)
Sara (for putting up with us for 9 days, and waking me up in a funny way each morning!)
Ce (for being champion of Balderdash!)
Last and least (but only height-wise!) Shami (for putting us up for 9 days, feeding us, and generally being a substitute for our mother. Thank you!)