Ventimiglia - Boys night out...

I arrived in Ventimiglia (or French version VentiMille) 1.07am, last train to or from the station until 5am. So I had couple of hours there. Even though all the bars, cafes and shops were closed, there was a man in between the standing trains...selling snacks, drinks and beer. What a great idea! Of course I had one...and a few more.

Fortunately I wasn't the only one waiting in the station, lots of sleeping people in there, even one father with his two children, seemed to be from USA.

I was smoking outside, drinking my first beer and then sort of started talking to some people...or they started talking to me, who knows.

By the end of the ... morning, the introduction of the people there could sound like a beginning of a good joke - There were an Estonian, Moroccan, guy from Senegal and another dude from Scotland who had just come from the G8 protest in Rome. And at some point, a french guy joined as well.

So before the train came, there were five of us sitting just outside the station, drinking beer, the guy from Senegal was praying, guy from France was playing guitar and singing; me, the morran guy and scotsman were discussing the world affairs. Well, sort of.

The religious beliefs in Morocco are extremely stong, thus the guy from Morocco, called Omar, was a true believer...well, yes, he did smoke and drink, but that doesn't matter. He says it's okay if you say god you're sorry. My and the scotsman were atheists...or maybe Agnostics. So discussing religion was definitely one of the main topics and obviously, there were no chances of us agreeing with each other. The guy from Senegal (the name sounded like Musa) just sat most of the time and listened to his ipod...he didn't speak English, thus couldn't really be part of our conversation. And then at some point he "fell" on his knees and started praying. And no, he didn't drink.

The guy from Scotland, don't really remember the name, had just come from the G8 meeting, he wasn't really a participant but rather he just protested against it, among the whole other 250 people. He's now probably in...well, god knows. Initially he thought he'd go to Barcelona, then he thought he'd go to Greece or Turkey, then he thought he'd go to Nice and then Alps...and the when I exited the train in Nice, he thought he'd like to sleep just a bit more in the train. He had found a great Inter Rail ticket from the internet - you just need to find it, print it out with your colour printer and then you can travel for free in the whole world. At least until you get caught.

So our company was rather colorful, considering I didn't know which kind of dump the Ventimiglia is...I'd say I was very happy to meet those guys and it turned out to be a rather interesting...early morning. Each of us (well, maybe except me) were great in his own sense...yet weird in his own sense at the same time as well. And that's what made it all rather great.