The date was 05 December 2008 (a year and a half ago? really?). I was 20 years old, studying abroad in Perugia, Italy and had my ticket and plan to travel to Dublin for the long weekend to visit one of my best friends and roommate from the States who was studying there. However, due to confusion, unclarity, and the completely unreliability of Italian train schedules, I was too late getting to the Rome airport to catch my flight. To blame: the trains in Foligno, a small, barely notable town somewhere between Perugia and Rome that I only knew for its dinky train station. I remember waiting in the thick, plastic, rain-protectant pod on the platform in Foligno, hearing the heavy, cold raindrops hit the tracks, marking each scattered second that the to-blame-train did not ..wait, is that ours? No? ... did not arrive.
Back to Rome. Missing this flight was one of the most upsetting things that had ever happened to me. I was panting after a sprint through the terminal in the Leonardo da Vinci Airport of Rome with a 300+ Euro ticket to Dublin, 15 minutes before the flight took off, at the airline desk, and the unsympathetic desk attendants glared at me with annoyance as they told me they could absolutely not let me through. I sat down against a wall in the middle of the very crowded terminal and cried so, so hard, called my mom, cried more, and tried to figure out what to do from there. There were no other flights I could even remotely afford that would get me to Dublin. However, I knew my one of my Perugia apartmentmates and friend were heading to Naples/Pompeii for the weekend, which was on my list of places to go. So, I called and bought a train ticket for Naples. The hurdles kept coming. Upon arriving at Roma Termani (the central Rome train station), there was construction on 2 of the tracks and those tracks were thus out of service. Therefore, a ton of trains were seriously delayed and we (and by we I mean me and the approximately 100 other stranded travelers in the train station) didn't know what platform trains were coming from. So, in a crowd of other frustrated Italians, I stood in the middle of the train station staring at the digital schedule watching the minutes add to our delay for about an hour and a haf. I did finally got on, though, and headed down South to the lovely (sarcasm) city of Napoli.
I don't know how much y'all know about the city of Naples, but it ain't pretty. Though the train station is a relatively safe place, it is not in a nice part of the city at all. Naples is dirty and dangerous for the traveler. My train arrived in Naples and I had to wait for my friends to meet me there--they were arriving by bus. The original one hour I was supposed to wait for them turned into 4 because of major traffic jams. In the meantime, I once again found myself alone in a train station. For my safety, I tried my best to make myself look occupied, happy and comfortable, all of which I was not. Thanks to my dark hair, I don't stick out like a sore thumb among Italians. However, I was a sad, frustrated, scared, and lonely American who had nothing to do but wait. Which I did. I did a lot of wandering and a lot of people watching. I sat in the McDonalds in the station to keep warm, and in my journal made a list of food I wanted to eat when I was back in the US (a chicken caesar salad from Wegmans, burger and fries, cranberry juice, chocolate chip cookies, and Chinese food), and a drawing of how I could rearrange my bedroom back in the states. I do recall now that I was shading in the windows in bedroom blueprint when my friends burst through the door, and I had never been so happy to see them.
Now around 9pm, the three of us found the Circumsuviana, which is the local train, to our hostel stop at San Agnello. It was raining and we got terribly lost looking for our hostel. Thankfully, a nice man who passed on his moped turned around to help us and we found our hostel, Hostel Seven. I knew we looked like a reck when we arrived-- tired, hungry, and wet. The desk worker felt sorry for us and made us gnocchi and served us each a glass of wine in the hostel lobby. Italian hospitality at its best!
We spent the day at Pompeii, which was mad cool. It had been on my list so I was so glad to get it checked off. We then went into the adorable city of Sorrento on the water, where they had Christmas lights strung along the streets and giant Christmas trees. We had a great dinner at a restaurant that Rick Steves (always a help) recommended. The two men who owned the restaurant took very good care of us-- I remember our server was a funny Italian man with a prominent lisp and continued to bring us liters of wine, even when we said we were finished.
The next day, the adventure continued. We took the Circumsuviana to head towards our next stop, but we missed our stop and wound up going all the way back to the Naples train station, and we stupidly thought it would be a good idea to take a stroll around Naples. We saw what everyone had always said about Naples--dirty dirty. Rick Steves told us that to assume that any able-bodied person in Naples was a thief, so we decided to head back to the train station, where we then we got completely ripped off on tickets and almost got mugged as we headed back to the tracks. Back onto the train, and found our stop, Castellemare di Stabia. We waited for half an hour outside the station until an energetic, young blonde Italian woman came looking for us, and drove us to the campus for the restoration of Stabia. We got this thanks to the mom of one of the girls I was with--somehow she had an affiliation with this organization that was restoring Stabia, a city similar to Pompeii that got ruined from a volcano eruption around the same time as Pompeii, We had a full, 5-course lunch and a private tour of the campus, and left with hands full of complimentary DVDs and books about Stabia's restoration.
We then took the Circumsuviana train back and forth many, many times and being very confused because it was not going as far as we needed it to (to get to our hostel stop). At some point, we realized something wasn't right, and got off and stood at a random station along the Circumsuviana track just as a crowd of fellow confused travelers started to gather. A few hours of standing and waiting, we learned that a tree had fallen onto the Circumsuviana track further down and they were working on fixing it. We stood standing at that tiny station among many impatient people for many hours. In that time, though, we did meet Martin, an American man in his mid-fifties, I would guess, who was traveling by himself around Italy. He was short, friendly, proudly wore a fanny pack on his waist (it's practical!), and reminded me very much of my father. With a common language and goal in mind, we teamed up with him, and we were soon joined by a newlywed Singaporian couple who were on their honeymoon traveling around Italy. The six of us decided to stick together, especially when we were messily directed to an intersection a few blocks away where we could get a bus to take us to Sorrento. It was complete madness. At least 100 people rushing across the streets (where drivers do NOT yield to pedestrians, by the way) with all sorts of luggage. All we had were backpacks, but Martin and the Singaporian couple had large bags on wheels. After another hour or so of waiting, some coach buses finally came, and once again the huge crowd of people rushed the buses. About 30 people, including our group of six, were left behind as the bus was literally as full as it could possibly be. Another public bus finally came, and they were extremely impatient as we loaded our bags on and crowded onto the tiny bus. I remember sitting on a strange ledge behind the driver that was definitely not a seat. The drive to Sorrento from wherever we were was long and extremely hilly. Hills + speeding bus + no seat + no fresh air + time = extreme nausea. I do, unfortunately, remember that detail way too well. When we finally made it to Sorrento, we are extremely hungry and tired. Martin was staying in Sorrento and told us that his bed and breakfast had an adjacent restaurant, so the six of us went with him to where he was staying. And where did he take us but the restaurant at which we had eaten the night before! The waiter with the lisp recognized us immediately and gave us a great table and served us a selection of things from the menu to share. Over dinner we found out each other's stories--Martin was recently divorced and always wanted to travel, so he took a few weeks off from his desk job to gallavant around Europe solo. Italy was the Singaporian couple's middle stop on their European honeymoon.
These are the best parts about traveling and meeting people. What an unlikely group we were-- of all ages, ethnicities, and pathways, strangers united by an inconvenience that soon turned into quite an adventure. Martin paid for our whole dinner which was incredibly sweet, and he helped the Thai couple get a room at the bed and breakfast since their final destination, Positano, was going to have to wait for the next day. Martin then insisted on letting him escort us back to the train where we could get back to our hostel stop. The six of us exchanged information, but we never heard from Martin or the newlywed couple again. I remember I did not have a pen or paper on me so I gave all of them my info and told them to find me on Facebook, but they never did. It's sad that we didn't get to reconnect. I wonder what they are up to now?
[Some of my photos I pulled up from the weekend. Circumsuviana, Sneaks waiting for train, inside the Circumsuviana, lights of Sorrento, Sorrento and the Mediterranean.]
At some point during the trip, when the six of us were on a train, getting from one end of Sorrento to the other, I remember Martin shared the G.K. Gilbert quote with us as we discussed the inconveniences of the day that had really turned into a fantastic adventure. Not only was the quote so fitting to my entire weekend, but it really shaped how I looked at the rest of my time in Italy, and really anything else I've done. Being in Italy made me a lot more carefree and spontaneous, and reconsidering an inconvenience as an adventure has made being independent and unsure much more exciting. I feel like I can handle anything that comes my way. I can take the bull by the horns and give pretty much anything a whirl, because if it doesn't work out as it's supposed to at point A, I'll go through ups and downs and twists and turns to a point B. And nowhere does it say that B is not greater than A. Which, conveniently, goes well with the title of my blog. Oh snap.
So Martin, if you're out there, thank you so, so much for giving me a quote to live by.
