The Difference Is In Pronunciation

There’s about two hours difference between Lausanne and Luzern – that’s if you realise early enough, say Chiasso, any further along and you might not be getting off ‘til Luzern.
Well Chiasso was as picturesque border town as I’m likely to get and the Swiss Guard spoke the most useful broken English this side of Florence.

So back to Milan and get on the right bloody train this time – the proverbial could still hit the cliché if this train to Geneva doesn’t get moving on me soon. I’ve still got two more trains to catch it’s 4.20, the sun is going down and according to the world atlas well over 250ks to hump tonight to my bed in the Alps. So a few nerves and my first steps on Swiss soil – just when I was mastering Broken Italian 101. You see, the language does change dramatically once you ride through that tunnel, sure they know Italian but they ain’t about to go rushing to speak it to some grubby Australian who didn’t realise the lingua franca had changed.

So now out the other side of Milan – there are men in black leather jackets disposing of concrete boot bodies in the rain and children kicking footballs along train platforms. A woman sits across from me, begging to weep but too proud. Her classical Italian stylings, black leather come hither boots, boot cut tan cargo pants and black wool blend turtle neck light weight jumper all belie her soul but her body language doesn’t.

Even though she sits looking at me her whole body points the other way, disappearing inside her self worse than clouds on an overcast day.

She keeps making alternate phone calls, one to a lover in English, one to a parent or a landlord, maybe both, in Italian. Now she wants to share the table, women always want it both ways. Ignore the ciao but demand her fair three quarters of the table. Her split ends hair rips back over a scalp poisoned with peroxide and tiny diamonds in her ears onset everything – they neither pass nor fail – they’re just there the same way You Am I are at the Annandale.