Cesena Push Camp - Part 2 2009/2010
We piled into the cars and headed down to Turin for a nice, relaxing evening of sightseeing, good food and a good night’s sleep before our flight the following morning. Well that was the plan anyway! We had however reckoned without the fact that Nic had somehow convinced our tried and trusted logistics maestro that, for simply booking a hotel for one night, she was up to the task. While Jo M concentrated her sweatshop efforts elsewhere, Nic surfed the internet looking for a reasonably priced hotel, within easy reach of the airport, with a good breakfast.
On all these points the hotel she chose passed with flying colours. The fact that it was in the red light district, with a wide range of clientele plying their trade outside only came to light as, after Jo J and Gill had had an altercation with two African gentlemen over the position of a bin (thanks Sean and John for providing moral support from the car!), Sean finally found a parking space – right outside the sex shop.
Walking into the hotel reception Jo J quickly alerted everyone to the presence of the he/she with fantastic legs loitering on the corner, prompting everyone to subtly, or not so subtly, go and have a look for themselves and, in Fiona’s case, take a picture for future reference.
With a small amount of trepidation we checked in and, apart from some double beds where there should have been twins, Zoe, Mickey and Jen’s not so spacious triple room with lethal steps up to a crawl space containing two beds and the fact that Jo J and Gill’s room had unmade beds and dirty towels (they’ve got no chance of improving their reputation if their room starts untidy!), everything was as it should be.
The three in the triple were moved to a slightly less hobbit-like room, the porter moved Jo and Gill one room along the corridor and, reasonably happy, we left our bags and headed out into the city to see the sights and feed our faces.
After a very informative, if not always completely accurate, guided tour courtesy of Nic and an authentic Italian meal, Nic was beginning to feel she might have made amends for her choice of hotel. However the night was still young!
Arriving back at the hotel Jo and Gill asked for their room key from reception – it wasn’t there. When the night porter tried to give them the key to the room they had been in originally instead, Jo put her foot down and kept it firmly down throughout all that followed! Taking the night porter upstairs so he could open the room, since the key was nowhere to be seen, no-one was sure what to expect. Maybe the new team motto should be “expect the unexpected” as no-one could have foreseen the situation we found when the porter opened the door.
As the door opened there was a protest from inside the room and a generously proportioned woman, dressed in nightclothes that left little to the imagination, came to the door, obviously alarmed by a strange man bursting in on her in the middle of the night. All hell broke loose as it became apparent that Jo J and Gill’s bags were missing and the very unhelpful porter refused to believe that A – we had ever been put in that room and B – that we had any luggage anywhere in the hotel. The woman herself was completely confused as she had been staying in said room for two nights already and couldn’t understand why anyone else would have been given her room.
Over the next hour the full wrath of Jo J was unleashed as she first convinced the woman that we were telling the truth – the fact that Gil had left her water bottle in the room and that Fiona had turned on the air-conditioning was the only evidence we had to prove our story. When the porter still proved unhelpful insisting that every single other room in the hotel was occupied, Jo J launched an assault on every door she passed – determined to locate the bags, even if she had to hammer down every door in the hotel to do it – her hand still hasn’t recovered!
The woman now mixed up in all of this was arguing, or maybe just having a nice relaxed conversation (you never know in Italy!) with the hotel porter, who knows what about. Back down in reception Jo J had an all-in wrestling match with the porter over the rooming list, trying to find the rooms that were unoccupied and therefore, by a process of deduction, may contain the missing bags. The Italian lady, now getting into her element, called the police. Nic and Jo M tried to restrain Jo J before she punched someone in front of said police, the noise level went through the roof bringing most of the team downstairs to see what was going on, the hotel owner arrived, people were sent in all directions with the keys of the suddenly unoccupied rooms in the hotel and generally a good time was had by all until, finally, Nic discovered the bags safe and sound in room 122.
Triumphant, Jo J rushed up to the room and, after locating the most important item in her bag – believe it or not - her hairbrush and tidying her hair, dragged her bags down to reception to prove to the porter that she had indeed had luggage all along and to let him know that she didn’t appreciate being called a liar. Not just one bag, but every single bag in her possession from small hand luggage to the enormous bag containing everything including the kitchen sink. The police did ask if everything was definitely in there – we’ll let them know next week once a full stock check has been completed!
Struggling back up the stairs with it Jo J did have to concede that her bag, despite trying to offload some items, was still probably going to be over the weight limit – for the record she was right!
Leaving the Italian woman still arguing with the police and the porter, everyone drifted off to bed although not necessarily to sleep – too much adrenaline for that. Everything was back to normal except for the raised voices downstairs and eventually even these stopped, the police left and the Italian woman finally returned to her room to get some rest.
Our team wasn’t quite finished with her however. Zoe, wanting to speak to Nic and Jo M, went up to the fourth floor and believing them to be in room 403 she knocked on the door. Unfortunately for all concerned Nic and Jo were actually in room 402 and the occupant of room 403 was – you guessed it – the Italian woman. Needless to state she was not altogether impressed by being disturbed again and Zoe hastily made herself scarce!
I think the moral of the story is never leave Nic unsupervised when booking accommodation, you never know what will happen. Safer still, leave it to the expert!
On all these points the hotel she chose passed with flying colours. The fact that it was in the red light district, with a wide range of clientele plying their trade outside only came to light as, after Jo J and Gill had had an altercation with two African gentlemen over the position of a bin (thanks Sean and John for providing moral support from the car!), Sean finally found a parking space – right outside the sex shop.
Walking into the hotel reception Jo J quickly alerted everyone to the presence of the he/she with fantastic legs loitering on the corner, prompting everyone to subtly, or not so subtly, go and have a look for themselves and, in Fiona’s case, take a picture for future reference.
With a small amount of trepidation we checked in and, apart from some double beds where there should have been twins, Zoe, Mickey and Jen’s not so spacious triple room with lethal steps up to a crawl space containing two beds and the fact that Jo J and Gill’s room had unmade beds and dirty towels (they’ve got no chance of improving their reputation if their room starts untidy!), everything was as it should be.
The three in the triple were moved to a slightly less hobbit-like room, the porter moved Jo and Gill one room along the corridor and, reasonably happy, we left our bags and headed out into the city to see the sights and feed our faces.
After a very informative, if not always completely accurate, guided tour courtesy of Nic and an authentic Italian meal, Nic was beginning to feel she might have made amends for her choice of hotel. However the night was still young!
Arriving back at the hotel Jo and Gill asked for their room key from reception – it wasn’t there. When the night porter tried to give them the key to the room they had been in originally instead, Jo put her foot down and kept it firmly down throughout all that followed! Taking the night porter upstairs so he could open the room, since the key was nowhere to be seen, no-one was sure what to expect. Maybe the new team motto should be “expect the unexpected” as no-one could have foreseen the situation we found when the porter opened the door.
As the door opened there was a protest from inside the room and a generously proportioned woman, dressed in nightclothes that left little to the imagination, came to the door, obviously alarmed by a strange man bursting in on her in the middle of the night. All hell broke loose as it became apparent that Jo J and Gill’s bags were missing and the very unhelpful porter refused to believe that A – we had ever been put in that room and B – that we had any luggage anywhere in the hotel. The woman herself was completely confused as she had been staying in said room for two nights already and couldn’t understand why anyone else would have been given her room.
Over the next hour the full wrath of Jo J was unleashed as she first convinced the woman that we were telling the truth – the fact that Gil had left her water bottle in the room and that Fiona had turned on the air-conditioning was the only evidence we had to prove our story. When the porter still proved unhelpful insisting that every single other room in the hotel was occupied, Jo J launched an assault on every door she passed – determined to locate the bags, even if she had to hammer down every door in the hotel to do it – her hand still hasn’t recovered!
The woman now mixed up in all of this was arguing, or maybe just having a nice relaxed conversation (you never know in Italy!) with the hotel porter, who knows what about. Back down in reception Jo J had an all-in wrestling match with the porter over the rooming list, trying to find the rooms that were unoccupied and therefore, by a process of deduction, may contain the missing bags. The Italian lady, now getting into her element, called the police. Nic and Jo M tried to restrain Jo J before she punched someone in front of said police, the noise level went through the roof bringing most of the team downstairs to see what was going on, the hotel owner arrived, people were sent in all directions with the keys of the suddenly unoccupied rooms in the hotel and generally a good time was had by all until, finally, Nic discovered the bags safe and sound in room 122.
Triumphant, Jo J rushed up to the room and, after locating the most important item in her bag – believe it or not - her hairbrush and tidying her hair, dragged her bags down to reception to prove to the porter that she had indeed had luggage all along and to let him know that she didn’t appreciate being called a liar. Not just one bag, but every single bag in her possession from small hand luggage to the enormous bag containing everything including the kitchen sink. The police did ask if everything was definitely in there – we’ll let them know next week once a full stock check has been completed!
Struggling back up the stairs with it Jo J did have to concede that her bag, despite trying to offload some items, was still probably going to be over the weight limit – for the record she was right!
Leaving the Italian woman still arguing with the police and the porter, everyone drifted off to bed although not necessarily to sleep – too much adrenaline for that. Everything was back to normal except for the raised voices downstairs and eventually even these stopped, the police left and the Italian woman finally returned to her room to get some rest.
Our team wasn’t quite finished with her however. Zoe, wanting to speak to Nic and Jo M, went up to the fourth floor and believing them to be in room 403 she knocked on the door. Unfortunately for all concerned Nic and Jo were actually in room 402 and the occupant of room 403 was – you guessed it – the Italian woman. Needless to state she was not altogether impressed by being disturbed again and Zoe hastily made herself scarce!
I think the moral of the story is never leave Nic unsupervised when booking accommodation, you never know what will happen. Safer still, leave it to the expert!
