I have a little coin purse that I bought in Crete. It’s of pale brown leather, with a painted-on decoration of coloured leaves on a vine, and it has two compartments. One compartment is perfect for coins, the other is too shallow and short for notes. So I never really used it for anything.
The other day, when I decided to return this purse to active service, I found a slip of paper in the second compartment. It is a receipt, the writing almost illegible – you know the way ink fades on that kind of slippery docket-paper. I can make out some words though: McDonalds, Buon Appetito, CHEESEBURGER (1.60) and PATATEGRAND (2.10). The Euro symbol is also visible, but not the total sum, nor the date or place.
I know when it’s from though. And I also know what that trip to McDonalds cost me and my travel companion of the time (apart from the 3.70 euros, I mean).
It was January 2006, I had just moved to Norway but traveled to Switzerland one week to catch up with Sam before he returned to Australia. After a series of confusions, during which it was discovered that he couldn’t fly out on the expected date and thus suddenly had a week to spare in Europe, Sam decided to spend that week in Norway (though we ended up going to Sweden too, but that’s a different story). To get to Norway we had to return the way I came – via the RyanAir airport “in” Milan.
We arrived in Milan by train, quite late in the evening. As our plane left early the next morning we decided to bus out to the airport and spend the night there, hopefully finding some comfortable benches on which to lay our sleepingbags. First though, we needed food. McDonalds is always a lame choice for seasoned travelers, but it was late, nothing else was open (I don’t think?), and anyway their fries are pretty good. So off we went to the golden arches across the road.
We placed our orders. Handed over our change. Received our food and our docket, and returned to the station. Only to discover that we had missed the last bus to the airport by 2 minutes. Cycling quickly through the five stages of grief, there wasn’t much to do other than settle on “acceptance” as our plight worsened another notch – the railway station itself closed at around 2am (or was it 3?). In other words, we were facing a cold night outside on the platform.
There isn’t much more to this story. Though fairly chilly (January in Europe means snow, in case you needed reminding), the worst I suffered was when Sam fell asleep and I got incredibly bored. I did some starjumps to stay warm, we listened to some music while Sam was awake, we struggled to find comfortable positions for sleep - I think we mostly sat upright against a pillar on top of our backpacks – and at one point I was slightly spooked out by some shady characters lurking in a pedestrian underpass. When morning finally came around we caught the first bus to the airport, and I had a morning nap on exactly the kind of semi-comfortable departure-lounge chairs that I’d imagined were to be my bed for the night.
Back in Norway Sam stayed with Andreas and me at Andreas’ parents’ house, and we did touristy stuff for a very snow-filled week before he returned to Switzerland and from there flew to Australia. For all the pain confused flights can cause, overall I think on this occasion it all turned out quite alright (wouldn’t you say so Sam?).
But I digress – the point of this story was the “night of homelessness”, endured so stoically (more so by Sam than me; I’m pretty sure I whinged quite a bit) by these two interpid travelers. I have recently read a few other stories about “homelessness” in various forms, you see, and finding the old docket from that oh-so-fateful Maccas-trip prompted me to add my own as an introduction and perhaps comparison. Two of the below are relatively similar, the other more serious. Enjoy!
Here, Jacqui Pavey learns a greater lesson from a similarly locked-out experience than just “don’t go to McDonalds without checking the timetable first”. Highly commendable, I’m sure. (Though I personally prefer a park to a trainstation any day.)
And here, Tim Fletcher (who I met and travelled with on the Trans-Mongolian railway, and whose travelwritings I’ve since followed with great interest and amusement) shares his experience, involving rather more fascinating characters.
As for the serious stuff: Tony Birch at the Right Now blog, pondering the homeless closer to home.
Pingback: Paperclips | Thoughts and All