The flight to Hell

Last Wednesday 29th Gigi and I travelled with his mother to attend a family wedding in Trieste. From Naples we had to fly into Venice.

In order to protect certain parties this is a story I wrote that is loosely based on recent events...read into that what you will.

The trip up north for the wedding was a mixed bag. I encouraged Gigi to go because it was his favourite childhood cousin getting married and because it’s perhaps the only time when we’ll be in the country for one of these affairs. Before we even caught the plane he was regretting the decision but by the end I think it was more good than bad. We have both decided never to travel with 'R' again though. It’s just too hard, and she’s so very different to us both, concerning her needs and likes. She is so incredibly unfit she is reluctant to walk very far at all. She’s on a special diet but Gi finds it very disappointing when she strays, which she did often while we were away. Her constant need to have a cigarette is another sticking point.

The flight up was a disaster. We had initially booked a flight departing Naples at 7.30am. 'R' was going to stay the night at our place and we’d catch a taxi to the airport. That would see us land in Venice by 9am and then we could look around a bit and catch a train at our leisure to Udine. The airline, Alpi Eagles, cancelled the morning flight and put us on a flight that night, leaving Naples at 10.45pm and arriving in Venice at 11.50pm. We called Gi’s cousin 'N' and asked if he could pick us up at the airport. He said he’d get back to us. He never did. Eventually his mother 'M' called 'R' and told her she couldn’t make it to the airport either. No real explanation why. So, we weren’t met at the airport. Gigi was furious, understandably. The thing is he’s become a bit accustomed to the Australian norm that is to drive two or three hundred kilometres as though it’s a quick trip to buy milk. I guess the trip from 'M'’s place to Venice airport is a bit over an hour if the traffic is okay. On my recnet trip to Germany my friend Esther’s dad drove further than that to pick Tom and I up from Dusseldorf. What is hard to understand is why there are complete strangers in the world who will go out of their way to do something like that and yet some family members are so self-absorbed they won’t even consider it.

So, we arrived at the airport at midnight and then managed to catch the last airport bus to Mestre train station (not the one in the centre of Venice). Then we managed to convince the driver of the next Eurocity train to make an unscheduled passenger stop in Udine on his way to Vienna. We boarded the train at 1.30 and arrived in Udine at 3am. Then we sat inside the station, under bright flouro lights, on hard seats, with all the drunks and homeless wandering around until 6am when I convinced Gigi’s mum it was a suitable time to call her lousy sister and ask her to drive the ten minutes to pick us up from the train station. She duly arrived at 6.50am. I slept briefly at the station until some strange man sat down next to me and scared me to death. I had my ipod on and I think he thought I was travelling alone. Gi’s mother managed to snore while sitting up. Gi of course stayed awake the whole night, on guard, protecting the luggage and his travelling companions. Now Gigi’s mother is no spring chicken, she’s 55 going on 65 so the whole night was not only difficult for us, but even worse because we were with his mother. They didn’t want to stay overnight in Venice because of the cost of accommodation in August and because the Bienniale Film festival was starting. I racked my brain for some other solution,but the reality was a miserable night, thanks to his selfish aunt who couldn’t sacrifice a couple of hours (we even offered to pay for the fuel). We were unable to change the tickets because it takes six weeks for a refund and we would have had to come up with more money to buy more expensive replacement tickets in the interim.

...there is a bit here that I've edited for privacy reasons...

Unfortunately I think the final outcome of the trip was the 'R' has decided to cut ties with her sister, and she certainly won’t be making a return trip north. She was there in February to help her sister during a bad patch, but 'M' hasn’t been to her home town of Naples for ages. In fact she almost despises the place. So, 'R' is now probably estranged from her two brothers and her sister potentially.

These people make my head spin sometimes!