A snippet from my inter-rail trip 2001

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Inter-railing around Europe should be easy after 6 months travelling in Africa. It was now the summer of 2001 and with only a few months left before university began a friend met on my previous travels and I decided to buy an inter-rail ticket for France and Italy and eventually make our way to Greece.
By the time we reached Italy we were barley friends. The lack of sleep and showers had caught up with us. In order to fit it all in, we travelled by night on the sleeper carriages and exploring a city by day. It didn't matter how many times we explained to the ticket offices that we wanted female carriages, we were always put with men. Old men. Fat old men that snored a lot. Now, I don't know if u have ever slept in a sleeper carriage but they are small rooms with three levels of bunk beds on either side. They get hot, and there is no ventilation. Except the window if course. Every night a fun game went on with the windows. The people on the right side would be hot and open the window. The people on the left side would end up freezing from the constant stream on evening air being pushed through the window of a train travelling at 100mph. Open, shut, open, shut, snore snore... Well you get the picture.

Then at 5am one morning still half asleep we heard the guard walk down the corridor shouting Napoli. We were at our destination and the train was about to depart. We sprung out of bed and realising we didn't have the time to get changed or pack our belongings, scooped it up and flung it out of the window. We ran to the exit and jumped off just as the whistle blew. We sat on the platform surrounded by sleeping bags, clothes, towels and toiletries, still in our pyjamas with sophisticated Italians staring at us and we laughed. A lot. The trip was fun, just not in the way we originally thought.

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