Natasha Abbott
Grace Hancock and Natasha Abbott – Team G&T Goal destination: Venice Achieved destination: Venice!
Grace Hancock and Natasha Abbott – Team G&T
Goal destination: Venice
Achieved destination: Venice!
On Saturday 4 March 2017 we were fortunate enough to participate in UWE’s Jailbreak challenge! As soon as I heard about the challenge I knew I had to do it, I will take any chance I get to travel; and travelling in the name of charity makes it even better!
We weren’t the most organised in planning our route, we considered a few ideas: hitching through Europe in lorries and cars or blagging flights from celebrities. However, 50+ emails later we realised it wasn’t going to be easy. When reading other Jailbreak stories we decided plane tickets were the key to success. We messaged every airline we could think of, getting the same reply: they already had their chosen charities that they sponsor, sorry. We attempted a few celebrities including local Bristolian celebrities but no response from anybody, we realised they must receive these types of request a lot.
Fundraising was a little easier with family keen to donate to us for such a good cause: we chose The Julian Trust Night Shelter as it is a local Bristol charity. We would like to have the chance to volunteer there as we have witnessed first-hand that homelessness is an issue within Bristol and we wanted our donation to make a difference. We appealed via social media for donations and managed to raise an amount that we are happy and proud of!
As Jailbreak grew closer we realised the night before that we still had no plan! After some panicked emails to relatives we managed to blag some free plane tickets to Milan from generous family members, which was a huge relief to us! This gave us a chance to plan where in Italy we should aim for, we decided on Venice. Once there we could have the chance to try and blag a free ferry across to Slovenia or Croatia.
When the day came we were both very excited, with bags packed (some too heavy which I regretted the entire trip) we headed off to Frenchay. It was lovely to be greeted with free Krispy Kreme doughnuts and our own jailbreak packs - which turned out to be very useful.
We set off to find a way to the airport, we decided to hitchhike from outside Sainsbury’s petrol station. After what felt like a long ten minutes and lots of weird looks from people, we were getting worried until two lovely students who’d seen UWE Jailbreak advertised around campus offered us a lift to the airport. Once there we tried fundraising some money only for a very angry Bristol Airport security guard to come and tell us off - if he saw the fundraising bucket again he would escort us off of the site! So instead we just had a long, boring wait at the airport.
Arriving in Milan was anything but simple, we waited for a ride to Milan city centre but after half an hour still nobody had picked us up. It didn’t help that the airport was tiny. It started pouring with rain and it hit 22:00. Exhausted and starving, we messaged family back in England to forward us 10 Euros for a bus to the centre, we had tried to get the bus drivers to give us free tickets but they were having none of it. By the time we arrived in the centre of Milan, disheartened from the lack of free buses and rain sodden, we decided to find a hostel.
After wandering around for an hour looking for an open restaurant and some Wi-Fi (we refused to eat McDonalds in Italy with all the amazing food there and the McDonalds didn’t even have Wi-Fi). We discovered all the hostels were fully booked. By this time it was midnight and we thought we’d end up sleeping on the street! We decided to walk to a hostel 20 minutes away and appeal to them. When we finally got there, a lovely Portuguese man listened to our case and took pity. There was only one bed so he said one of us could have the sofa - this was the best news ever to us! He tried to give it to us for free but the manager wouldn’t allow it, we got it at a reduced rate and had free breakfast!
We had a surprisingly good sleep and awoke to a lovely breakfast buffet. Feeling more refreshed and optimistic we wondered through Milan enjoying the sites en route to the motorway where we planned to hitch a lift down the motorway. The hostel worker had given us a route and told us to write ‘Auto Strata’ on our hitchhike signs to show we want to go to the motorway and be dropped at petrol stations.
After an hour and half of walking it became a lot more run down and suburban. When we wandered into a field with nothing in sight that we got slightly worried. We walked around a bit thinking we would be lost forever before an Italian man pulled over to see if we were ok. He spoke basically no English. We tried to tell him we were looking for a petrol station and he took us to a supermarket, which in hindsight was better than nothing.
It took 30 minutes outside the petrol station before a car finally picked us up. We got in to be greeted by three men laughing and speaking Arabic. We couldn’t communicate much but we sat quietly and tried to explain our case. They took us about half an hour further on before dropping us at another petrol station before they turned off to go to their town - first successful hitchhike done!
Over the next 4 hours we got in two more and lots of waiting at petrol stations. It got rather scary when a police car pulled up and we discovered that hitchhiking at petrol stations is actually illegal!
More cars came and went, we started to get a little worried and actually approached people to ask for a lift rather than wait. We asked some guys who looked our age and they happily obliged to take us 30 minutes down the road.
Our final lift was the one that took us to Venice! He was a lovely old man who was actually going to Slovakia but drove us all the way across the bridge to the water front. He spoke good English and just saved us from the approaching thunderstorm.
Once in Venice it was 20:00 and there seemed no point trying to go any further, so one water boat later we were in the centre of the city and declared our jailbreak adventure complete! We celebrated with a glass of prosecco and a lovely Italian dinner!
It would have been amazing to go further but after hitching took us the entire day it seemed too optimistic to get further than Venice. However, we could not complain as it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to - it was truly amazing to be there knowing we got there ourselves for free using just our initiative and confidence.
We booked tickets back on Tuesday so we could have a day to enjoy, explore and of course eat LOTS of Italian food. Overall Jailbreak was incredible. I’m so grateful I got to take part, it was a great opportunity and nice to have a mid-term mini break for a good cause! I am already thinking about next year’s Jailbreak: we will be more prepared and we already have ideas of what to do and we will be in it to win it!
A pledge signed by VC Steve West
Following the publication and the success of our first issue, we are very pleased to launch a call f