Mountain Pass #2 - Two Idiots in Milan

Three pints, three double Jack Daniels and 40 minutes to boarding a Ryanair flight to Milan (Bergamo) - we sipped as quickly as we slipped towards impending doom. The engulfing misplaced drunken bravado propelled us to the bar and to order a bottle of cabernet sauvignon. This was the first of what was to become a catalogue of wrong decisions, dwarfing even that of the good American Bush.

The mix of potent drinks in such a short period spun our heads and force-fed our egos. We turned the laptops back on with the mocked up website emblazoned across the screen, and revelled in the glances it attracted from the two tables to our right. YEAH, IT WAS!!!!!! FANTASTIC WASN'T IT, WASN'T IT?????

The flight flew by in a haze, ending embarrassingly with a rebuff from the strikingly good-looking stewardesses. They politely encouraged us back to our seats after our failed attempts to flirt with them as they set sat chatting in the empty back rows. Cringingly we 'seduced' the girls with the lines 'we've got our own business - its art' and 'are there any good clubs in Bergamo'. We merited the derisory response they provoked. Dear, oh dear!!!!! That we remain single is perhaps unsurprising.

We had learning nothing from our desire to get there early. It was only on the way to pick me up from work the previous day that Matt realised the flight was 'tomorrow' and I stayed at work, cancelling my half day. We abandoned plans to have a couple of hours sleep at Bergamo airport and made an alcohol fuelled decision to taxi it straight to Milan.

Despite being the business hub of Italy, we felt a bleary sense of bewilderment that the gates to the Stazione Centrale were not to be re-opened until 5, a full 4 and a half hours later. What prompted our decision to save on a hotel and kill time until our 5.45 to Firenze was anybody’s guess.

At this point I must confess that on my first trip to FLORENCE in 2003 I was alarmingly even less cultured than four years on. Travelling alone, I puzzled as the train chugged to a halt beneath the large white and blue sign declaring ‘FIRENZE’. ‘Excusi... is this Florence?’ I enquired of the short, balding Italian man across the aisle. A dismissive shake of the head and a furrowed eyebrow somehow unnerved me more than his piercing stare. That I would have settled back down for my on-going journey had it not been for the belated and begrudging 'Ci' is perhaps the most damning indictment of my cultural awareness.

Back in Milan - the biting cold offered no respite from that left behind in Newcastle. The unwelcoming and shadowy characters and rings of street gangs chilled further. Apprehension prevailed over alarm solely because the invincibility derived from our top-up whisky on-flight was yet to fully wear off. With laptop bags draped over our shoulders and the suitcases train-tracking over rickety old pavements behind us - we set off for the sanctuary of a bar to while away the early hours.

Some 40 minutes later, far from refuge and disgruntled, we compromised on yet another beer and for safety in numbers. So, we parked ourselves amongst a throng of people huddled outside a street vendor, just in the shadows of the stazione. Menacingly the cliques encircling us were non-native Italian speaking and seemed to be multiplying as each sip of Heineken ebbed away.

Next time, it will be my sad duty to introduce the girls.

Afterthought - If at this point we had only put down our cans and stopped to assess how close we were to the abyss, we could have stepped back, changed direction and averted the fall.