My last day in Italy involved taking various trains from Venice to Nice, France. I started off in Venice, then went on to Milan, followed by the bordertown of Ventimiglia and the famous Monte Carlo casino of Monaco. From here, the transfer point on to Nice got a bit strange.
At the train station I asked an attractive man the directions to get to the Nice train station; without hesitation the guy closened up to me and was oddly friendly from the get go. He told me he is from Tunisia but works construction in France; his family lives all over France, Tunisia and Italy. He sat with me on the trains, wanted to carry my bags, know all about me. At this point I am a little nervous. Though he is attractive, something about him screams hustler and I’ve been warned more times than many to watch my belongings in Nice.
He asked if I wanted to go out that night, for my phone number, to come back to France in the future, all within a train ride of a few hours. We arrived in Nice and he insisted on helping me find a hotel room. I couldn’t seem to shake him and to be honest, there was something charming about him.
He tells me that he will talk to the patron of the hotel in French to get me a good deal on a room; he says that he will pretend that I am his girlfriend and I am leaving town in an emergency. I don’t understand why this bit of information is necessary and so I tell him that I can speak to the proprietor no problem.
The first hotel he that he took me to I talked to the owner and was quoted a ridiculous price. I decided to try another place and let this guy tell his story about me being his out of town girlfriend. Maybe he knows how to negotiate a price better than I do. The next place we go to is absolutely disgusting! Nasty. This guy tells this story about me being his girlfriend and (this was in French but I could understand) "WE" needed the room for "une nuit de passion"!
WHAT? I told him he had to leave and that I wasn’t spending the night with him. He said "ok, lets go out tonight then." Without wanting to argue I said fine. He left me in the urine smelling hotel so that he could go take a shower at his home and said that he would return in a few hours. Once it was clear however I checked out of that nasty place and got as far as I could from this man who I can only presume mistook me for a prostitute.
I went a ways down the street to a much nicer hotel. Though advertised for 300 Euro per night the clerk let me have the room for 70. It was just what you would imagine a hotel in France to look like, something a Victoria Secret model might sleep in. Even at a discounted 70 Euro the place was out of my budget, but it was my last night in Europe and the place that I was left in was a nightmare—the pee stained toilet had no paper; the sink was on a separate floor in a hallway with no electricity; there were bunk beds for 6 people in the room I was assigned to; the hallway smelled like chow mien noodles; there was an Olympic games bed spread from the year 2000 that the clerk grabbed out of his apartment when I arrived.
This was my last night; I am a little sad but I am also happy to return to my normal life. The man who mistook me for a hooker did say something to make me happy. He said that Americans always look happy and smile a lot and in general I believe this is very true. At the end of a long journey, and moments like this, I do appreciate my loud mouth, Wal-Mart shopping, steak eating, big car driving, super sizing, elbows on the dinner table countrymen!
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