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August anniversary

Posted on August 15, 2011 @ 3:36 pm by massimo | Filed under: advertisement,bargain,blog,food,holidays,illustration,news,people,travel,wordpress

On August 13 morning, 1978, I woke up in  the ground floor dormitory of King George VI Memorial Hostel, Holland Park, London. I was very dizzy. The first thing I could see from my bed was a bunch of clothes in the middle of the room and my room-mates standing around it,  picking up their trousers and shirts…What the hell had happened was clear to me when someone told that burglars had entered the ground floor dorm in the nighttime, by an open window, sprayed the air with some funny sleeping gas, stolen everybody’s money. I was definitely broken! I went to the dorm upstairs where my travelling companion was, I talked to him and borrowed 30 £. All I could do with such little money was to buy a cheap ticket home. I went for Magic Bus. At their travel agency in  Shaftesbury Ave they told me that a coach bound to Greece was scheduled on august 15 at 8 pm; I was supposed to get off in Milan, where my dear aunty lived. The ticket price was 25 £! All I had to do was to survive until the bus departure. Friends of friends drove me in Weighton rd, Penge, where someone else lived in a squat. I was welcomed and I was suggested to attend the nearby Hare Krishna restaurant where I could get free vegetable soups. On august 15, the magic bus left from Charing Cross. I was on board, rather hungry, a Wimpy Bar sandwich in a box, 5 copper pence in my right pocket and the absolute certitude to be in Milan in less than 48 hours. The bus was overcrowded by last minute tourists, willingly looking their hot greece holidays. In a hurry, we all where positively hurry for some reason, but, alas! that bus company was really magic. As soon as we reached Chamonix Bus Station, on the French side of  Mont Blanc tunnel, the Greek driver asked everybody to get off:  a new magic bus would be arrived in half an hour and picked up all of us. It is a fact that after 6 hours no bus whatever was in sight yet! All The Brits where absolutely disgusted and very, very angry. I left them there , still waiting for their never coming bus, and I  caught an ordinary shuttle bus to Aosta, Italy. Once in Aosta I went to a police station, I showed my fully empty pockets, so getting a printed temporary permit to travel by train for free to Milan. Happiness and exctiment swelled within me: I felt so proud, I was just 18 after all…

Illustration friday topic is: swell

This entry was posted on Monday, August 15th, 2011 and is filed under advertisement, bargain, blog, food, holidays, illustration, news, people, travel, wordpress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 people have left comments

Interesting story, and great illustration of this Magic Bus. Must have been scary to awake to such an intrusive crime.

Katie White wrote on August 15, 2011 - 4:49 pm UTC

Thanks a lot for the tips! I agree almost with everything, especially that casual doesn’t mean unprofessional.

china travel service wrote on November 9, 2011 - 8:56 am UTC

Interesting story, and great illustration of this Magic Bus. Must have been scary to awake to such an intrusive crime.

turkish coffee maker wrote on November 17, 2011 - 12:07 pm UTC

We are happy you didn’t need a car to get around. The magic bus sounds like the disneyworld buses.

maureen guy wrote on November 19, 2011 - 5:43 pm UTC

feel free to leave a comment

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