Instagram killed travel to afar #1: Girl on the train
Part 1 of my travel tales that didn't live up to the expectations that Instagram instil in us. Also someone's super stylish house, a super stylish woman and a SUPER duper stylish dance. Come dive in..
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As the train slowly leaves St Pancras I am reminded that I have done this exact journey before.
London to Milan via Paris.
Back in 2007 I had already met Boy. I’d moved into a house full of strangers just a few weeks before, I had a new job and I was in the process of rebuilding my life.
HA! Oh what a fool I was thinking that I was rebuilding at the age of 29.
I had no clue what a midlife crisis looked like then but bless her. She thought she was in one. Sixteen years later I am not so much rebuilding but desperately clinging on and wondering why no one tells you your 40s can be a wild, hair loss inducing, panic riddled ride. My anxiety is through the roof and it is a new feeling for me. An alien feeling.
But still I plough on. I am, after all, in my favourite place.
Travelling.
Leaving the real world behind for a while and heading off into the unknown. Overthinking is severely reduced as my options are limited. Limited physically to what I can carry in a bag by myself. Limited mentally because the landscape is foreign to me. I can not daydream and coast my way through this journey. I actually have to concentrate and use my brain.
What a refreshing feeling.
At Gare du Nord I feel the grip of anxiety loosen. I’m familiar with this capital city. I feel confident in France. I’ve been here many times and I speak the language. Badly and slowly but I can still communicate in it. Should someone ask me for directions I would be more than capable in telling them that I don’t live here so no, I can’t help them. Je suis très désolé.
Once settled, on the connecting train to Milan, I head to the toilet and look in the mirror.
What reflects back at me is not what I had hoped for.
I thought I had dressed with style and practicality. I thought my make up free face showed that although I was exhausted the base was still hanging onto something fresh and ever so slightly youthful.
My skin is not good and it makes me look like a rosacea riddled man in his late 60s.
My collared shirt is buttoned right up to the neck, which is a look I like, but today makes me look like a Conservative voting man in his late 60s.
I believe both of these men are known as ‘Gammon’. Not the look I was aiming for.
I didn’t realise that I had lost weight so my trousers don’t fit properly. They sit too low which makes them too long and I’m wearing trainers because….Well, I don’t know why but I’m wearing trainers. My hair just looks shit.
This is terrible and not how people travel on Instagram.
I look like Quentin Crisp at 3.30 in the morning after a night out in Soho.
My outfit resembles something Tom Wilkinson would wear as a bumbling Englishman in an Italian odyssey movie about other bumbling English people.
How have I got this so wrong?
When I see how people travel online they have dewy bouncy skin and slicked hair and outfits that fit and are comfortable and stylish AND practical. Their luggage matches and they have manicures.
I look like Andrew Lloyd Webber after a particularly boozy lunch.
As I hover over the toilet seat I think about my Andrew Lloyd Webber face and whether sun or sleep or just an entirely new face will be the answer to my physical woes. I look down and realise that the toilet is leaking.
WTF!
Water is streaming from the back of the bowl along the floor and pooling round my trainers. I look behind me and realise I haven’t lifted the toilet seat. Water is not streaming from the back of the basin ~ I’m just peeing on the lid and it’s ricochetting onto my feet.
I mean what is happening here?
The train leans to the left and my pee starts to leak out of the door and into the corridor of the TGV. How have I managed to get myself into this ridiculous situation where my toilet habits are akin to someone eleven pints down?
For some very bizarre reason there is a large roll of kitchen roll in the corner of this small bathroom. I don’t question it. I’m just grateful.
Once I’ve managed to clean up the fact that I’ve missed the toilet and pissed on the floor I take myself, and the three men I’m representing, out of piss filled tiny TGV bathroom and head to the bar area.
Having studied French and then had a years one on one language training during lockdown I should be better than I am. I’m not. I can never remember the tenses. I do manage to buy a drink and some nuts though. I’m good at pointing and smiling and saying oui with a convincing accent. The bartender also speaks English. I feel so dumb and I wonder if he knows that I peed on the floor and some of it is in the corridor of his train.
On Instagram they would have done a few months of Duolingo and been fluent and no doubt had a conversation about where the nuts were from and where they’re heading to in Italy. I wonder if the peeing on the floor would have made it into a reel or a story. Probably neither. No one on Instagram forgets to lift the toilet lid.
I smile, again, and say Oui. Merci. Au revoir.
Back at my seat I start to relax.
I’m in a quiet, civilised carriage that has wide comfy chairs and the woman next to me is super cool. Cool in a European Girl way. She smiles at me and we have a small, conversation in French. I push past the ouis and the mercis. I’m still embarrassed by the fact that an Eastenders accent invites itself on top of my, so called, second language whenever I have to produce a sentence longer than six words. I’m only day one of my trip though so I need to give myself a break.
Just wait till I get cracking on my non existent Italian.
******
The landscape starts to change as we head further on. The city girl in me marvels at the abandoned ghost towns we pass through.
The city girl then realises they’re just small, rural villages at 5pm in the afternoon.
The colours are like drugs to me. So many different shades of green ~ dark crispy kale, deep forest, bright pea, vivid chartreuse, a little terracotta dotted in between. I glue my forehead to the window and try to inject all this natural goodness into me. A bit like the salad I know I’m going to desperately need after an extended period of white carbs and alcohol.
With white carbs and alcohol in mind we eventually emerge from a long tunnel and the language on the signs change. The sun is finally shining and I can see white tipped mountains.
I have made it to Italy.
I am in a country I have dreamt about coming to for years. It kind of looks and feels like we could be in France but we’re not. I don’t understand the language and I don’t know anyone here. It makes me wobble a little. It’s different and from here on in it’s going to take some getting used to.
A little like the differences between 40 and 45. Everything feels and pretty much looks the same but it’s not. I’m not as confident as I was. It’s different from here on in and it’s going to take some getting used to.
My super cool seat mate leaves me in Torino. Who is this fabulous beast who boards in Paris and alights in Italy on a Tuesday afternoon?! I wonder what exciting life she’s leading and whether, in another universe, we’d be friends…
The train starts to thin out. I change seats and face the direction of travel. Now I’m racing towards Milano with the snow capped Alps in full view and the sun starting to set before me. The anxiety is getting quashed by excitement.
I’ve seen this type of journey on Instagram. I’ve saved it and researched round it and dreamt about doing it. Now I’m living it. It may not be as stylish or as slick or as well edited as we see online but I’m still experiencing it and so far it feels great. It feels real and where I’m supposed to be.
A few hours later it is fully dark and the train pulls into the station of this mega Italian metropolis I’m going to explore. I gather my bags, take Quentin, Tom & Andrew, as well as my piss stained trainers and step into the unknown.
Bonjour! On y va…..
To be continued……
Milan |May 2023
The Contents of My Consumption
~ Watching 📺~
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