This is Living

We started travelling from Castel Gandolfo at 10.30. It was raining hard and had been for quite some time. Our host not only drove us to the train station, he gave each room a bottle of wine only asking that we didn't drink it on the train. The ticket office was closed so we expected to pay our fares on the train but in the event we met no inspectors,, ticket sellers or problems and got to Rome for free. of course, the fare for Naples was far from free. The Express was initially delayed, but we kept our eyes open and, avoiding the baggage buggies and the hordes of disembaking passengers, we eventually made it to our carriage (a train would have helped to get us there). We had booked adjoining seats (there were five of us), but they weren't so adjoining when we found them. even then an irritable Italian couple tried to oust us from them, but brandishing our ticket we stood our ground. The Italian man went off to rob some guy's magazine.
(As I write an American couple are talking about how they are moving room because of the howling of a local dog. Concidentally the dog is howling; it ain't that bad.)
Getting to Naples a friendly tourist office guy helpfully sold us higher priced tickets, but I think t was all sincere. We will probably save on Pompeii tomorrow, but we still had to buy additional train tickets.
Waiting for the Sorrento train was no fun. Warned of pickpockets we didn't have to look very hard to find them. We had a twenty minute wait and all that time we stood on the platform circling the wagons while a kid in a red t-shirt tried to talk to us about football. Then tiring of us he participated in a very staged shouting match with an old man in an open shirt. Neither boarded any train, nor did the scary gnome with long hair who prowled every which way. Eventually still circling, we got our our train.
The Sorrento train stops everywhere; thirty-three or more stops. It was hot and tiring, but I got some anonymously sent text abuse to entertain me. Anyhow finally arriving the first port of call was a bar for a couple of bottles of Italian beer. then I organised my pick-up and eventually, at nine, i checked in. My hotel is laughably far from the town centre, but what a view and what a place. I have just had a dinner, on the balcony overlooking the christmas tree lit bay, a dinner of octopus salad and veal in white wine sauce for a ludicrously cheap price. I didn't even have to pay for the American entertainment the proprietor apologised to me for. They really aren't that bad, but a sixty something chatting about his Harley is fun. (We're on to 'refinancing' issues right now and the son is 'selling a sports drink on his site right now'. 'No idea' what the sports drink is though. Red Bull's the big thing now, especially in San Diego. Sorry all my American friends. You can send me abusive texts if you want. )
By the way this bloody PDA capitalises every sentence, but I do that anyway so I end up lowercasing everything. Sorry. I'll change the settings soon.