Back from holiday.

So, long-promised travel stories. One, to be exact.

Fellow travellers may be normal but sometimes they are weird. Or annoying. Or just anything. The woman was of the weird and annoying sort.
After the steward announced to me and the Asian nerd in the compartment that there'll be only one more person getting aboard in Bruck an den Mur, a big fat ugly crone arrived. She was wrapped in an ugly coat and umpteen layers of something that was macerated in mothballs for longer than polite. As it showed a while later, she was Romanian and travelling to Rome. She looked like one of those beggars that are to be seen even in Florence but I didn't ask about her job. I wanted to knit, read and later on, sleep.
Alas, Ms. Mothballs wanted to communicate. I tried to politely hint that I do not want to talk. Apparently, I should have shouted and hit her. She asked where am I from. Finland. Full stop, evil face. She wanted to know where I'm going, Rome, too, eh? Grunt, unfriendly look. She said I was pretty and wanted to pat my chin. I made a very unfriendly look and hid behind my book. She wanted to see my knitting and when I decided that I speak only Finnish and two extinct languages of your choice and didn't react. She grabbed the hat I used as a pattern for the mitten pattern and started to inspect it saying that the pattern is ugly. As if I asked for an opinion.
I settled to sleep. Or to pretend to sleep - I was watching the snowed caps of the Alps in the moonlight. Ms. Mothballs was rustling her lunchbag and munching whatever she had, at least it was not matured cheese.
In the morning, I woke up because Ms. Mothballs was making sounds. Cough, cough, gurglegurgle, spit. Repeat a lot. Yikes.
In Florence, I shot out of the train as fast as I could. Got a ticket to Reggio Emilia, went home, dropped the suitcase, checked the internetz, went to the station... and the brain caught up. My diary is not in my bag - I don't remember taking it out - where is my diary? Left on the train. I asked the personnel as for what to do and was told to go to Rome and ask at Lost and Found.

Here I need to declare that I officially love Ravelry. I called out for help because going to Rome... well, three hours on the train, if nothing else. Fellow Ravellers went and checked - too bad that my diary wasn't found. I suspect the Ms. Mothballs but it might be anyone, after all, it was a diary of 2008. But, the people tried. Things work.