Trains, strikes and other adventures.

Its 3 am in Italy and Jessica and I are in the back of a van flying down the autostrand with two strangers in the front seat. I look out the window and see the big dipper, but we are not talking about some weak version, this is huge, hanging in the air near the horizon, unbelievably grand.
I can tell that our driver is trying to keep us safe because he is driving down the exact middle of two lanes, the white line running under the center of the van.

Everyone is silent while the radio is softly playing what sounds like an Italian Paul Anka. When that song ends I hear Phil Collins singing "Another Day in Paradise" I kid you not.

I just laugh to myself and look back out the window, trying to catch a glimpse of the bid dipper again.

Have we been abducted? Are we being smuggled to or from some foreign country? Ok, it's been a LONG day and it's way more fun to play a game like this than admit we are simply taking a taxi from Terontola to Perugia after missing the last bus from Rome. HA! I havenàt had this much fun in a long time. On the other hand, I'm thinking I'll seem some grey hair on Jessica in the morning.

The morning seems so long ago. Our intention was to go find one of the Ikeas in Rome and buy ourselves some things we needed as well as a fan. It was either get up at 5 something to make the 6 am train in to Rome, or sleep a little later and take the 11:15 in. We decided on the one at 11 and of course running late, there was a line, and we barely made the train. I though second class was really nice, two big seats on both sides, the airconditioning was working, we got seats next to one of the best looking guys in Italy, longer curly hair, young, cute..... Ahh.. Italy.

So off we got no Rome, checking out the countryside, all the hilltowns going by, on some of the hills\mountains you could even see the end of the tree line, where nothing grows above. Really nice, everything isbrown though, being mid -July, but still beautiful.

I start getting sleepy and before I know it, the conductor\ticket collecter stops by. Now the fun begins.
HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I READ ON SLOWTRAV THAT YOU HAVE TO PUNCH YOUR TICKETS BEFORE GETTING ON THE TRAIN? I have read this at least 40, 50 times. Guess what I forgot to do? Punch our tickets. So now everyone around us is looking at me as the consuctor is going on in Italian about this, and I'm half asleep so coming up with "I don't speak Italian" is not an option, unless of course you want Spanish mixed in with it. (I have to tell you, this Spanish thing is becoming a real problem for me now)

Finally he just says "Non Italiano?" and I just sheepishly grin and hit my hand to my forehead like how could I have forgotten, and mumble some Spanish. He writes something on each of our tickets and hands them back,and I slink down into my chair.

Note: Don't worry about all the beautiful places in Italy, get to Italian classes.

The rest of the ride is pretty uneventful, other than I get to exchange smiles with the cute Italian guy across from me when we go through some killer tunnels and everyone's ears are popping.

We get into Rome Termini train station and go to find the bus. All we really have as far as directions are the bus numbers that say will go to the store. What do they say about a wing and a prayer? I think all we really had was the prayer, because we go outside and find out there is a bus strike that day.

Note: Check for bus strikes when going to another city.

IF we had been smart we would have turned around and gotten bcak on the next train to Perugia, but no, come on... We are here, we can jus catch a cab.

This was the weirdest cab catching experience I have ever had, you couldn't just hail one, I think it was because everyone was calling the radio cabs, so they had to go to the person that called him. Well finally we got one to drive us to Ikea. At first he didn't want to, I told him we knew it would be around 40 euros, but after the experience I think he would have made a lot more money with quick trips downtown.

It took us forever, so much traffic, and yes about 40 euros, but finally we see the Ikea sign. It was sort of sad, it felt like being home again. Here was one spot in Italy we were familiar with. I was hoping they might even have ice cubes!

The first thing we did (after kissing the floor) was go up and get some Swedish meatballs. We needed some little taste of home. Ohhhhhhh man, good stuff. No ice though.

Note: Never go to a country again that does not have ice cubes.

I'm telling you, it's becoming an obsession with me, truly horrible, like being a drug addict or something.

We took our time in Ikea, airconditioned but still not as cold as I was hoping for. Bought trash baskets and toothbrush holders and rugs and tea kettles and all sorts of stuff. We start getting towards the end and I'm asking Jess where the fans are?? Guess what? No fans. I think they are just trying to wear me down and make me cry uncle.

Trying not to go into the corner and curl up in a fetal position I try to smile and say it's ok, but it really isn't. I just want ice cubes and a fan. I can bypass the airconditioning, I just want air movement and something frozen to crunch on. For some reason this would make everything in the world right. No more war, hate killing if everyone just had a fan and a supply of ice cubes. OK, maybe a Sierra Mist too.

Anyway, we get our stuff bagged up and go to the cash machine to pull out some euros, and go stand outside to see if maybe there is a taxi out there.

Nope, no taxi, so we hang out a few, it's hot but windy so it doesn't feel too bad outside. We hang out a while and see a taxi go by down a side road, and try to flag it down. No luck, he had someone with him, so maybe he'll come back.

After probably 20 minutes or so we decide to stop the cart boy and see if he know where we can get the number of a cab company. He explains to us in faultering English that the numbers are up by the pay phones. We are willing to try out Italian with him, buthe really wants to be able to speak to us in English. The first person to be honest, that has tried to hard to communicate with us in English. I think he even said at the end "sorry about my bad english." We sais he did great, and go to find the taxi numbers.

This part may vary a bit from Jessica's story because the taxis were called so omany times in the next couple of hours. If I remember correctly the first time we called they said fine, and we went down to wait.

Rather than gothrough every time we caleld, let's just say that in the next couple of hours we called taxis so many times it was unbelievable. Twice we even went into Ikea and had customer servcie call for us. In fact the second time Jess had like three or 4 people all on phones calling. No one wanted to send a taxi out this far, they were making a killing in Rome I'me sure.

Finally Jess told me that the Ikea people said I should call the yellow pages on my phone to get the number of a private driver, but to wait a few because they might have someone that would come pick us up.

The private driver thing may soudn weird, but itàs what we had pick us up from the airport and drive us into Rome, it only cost 40 euros and we weren't that far from the airport.

So in Italy, and I think this is for all of Europe, you call a yellow pages number, talk to a person, tell them what you are looking for, they hang up, go into the yellow pages and start text messaging you all the different people available, to your phone. Ok, this is probably the coolest thing I have heard of, my god what a good idea. The only problem with my yellow pages guy is he wouldn't give melistingd for personal drivers. I begged him, nope, he was bound a determined we would be able to find a taxi through the listing he would send to me.

I must be a real wuss in my old age because I agreed, which didn't matter because they got us a cab a few minutes later. Either way I have about 10 text messages with numbers of taxis in Rome, so if anyone needs one...... :-)

By now it's something like 8 in the evening and we know we've missed the last train to Perugia that we knew of, but I'd rather stay all night in the train station than outside Ikea.

After about 10 mille grazies to the cab driver we set out,and boy, this guy knows his way around, about 30 minutes later and only 18 euros on the meter, we are at Termini station. Unbelievable. So telling him he is perfect and many more mille grazies and a HUGE tip for being the only taxi in town to pick us up,we're back at the train station.

Note: Not one tourist site has been seen on this trip.

At the train station again we run to a self serv machine to see if we can get a train back to perugia tonight.

Note: these machines lie, they have the option to have us read in English, but they lie, the most important stuff is still in Italian. No Perugia that we see, so we choose other and type in Perugia. Bingo! There is a train to Perugia at 23:40 that will get us there by 1:40 am.

Ok, that didn't sound right but who are we to doubt Trenitalia! We purchase the tickets and even feel so good about getting to go home we upgrade to first class. Yeah! Only 4 hours to wait!

We wonder over to a restaurant. i donàt think we had even eten that day. Oh wait, at 2 we shared a sandwich when we got into the train station. (Have I mentioned that I have lost about 12 pounds since being here?)

We are carryoing these three huge blue plastic Ikea bags that we bought, so Jess goes first to get something to eat and come back with gelato. That just isnàt goig to do it for me, I see real food and go to get a plate of spaghetti wiht fresh tomoatoes. YUM. No problems that it is one of the two last servings of the evening and some of the noodles are dried up, this is awesome food. I also see something frozen and slushy. whenever i see this i must buy it, it's the closest to ice i get, so i buy two waters and one of these orange slushies. PARADISE!

I go sit down and let Jess try the spaghetti, which makes her go by the last service. This is heaven.

After eating and resting we decide to go explore the train station. I have not seen one gypsy throw a baby at someone to pickpocket them, nor have I seen any ragged gypsy kids singing songs while they pickpocketted you. I'm sort of dissapointed, I was promised a big adventure in this train station, dang it!

No gypsies, just lots of tired travelers from all over the world. Very interesting, but not the most exciting. So we sit to wait, and wait, and wait. My mom calls and I assure her that we are safe and fine and that I am having a blast. 10 at night in Rome at Termini station, milling around with hundreds of other travelers. I'm sorry, but this is living to me.

We keep waiting to see Perugia listed with a track number, but nothing is coming up on the the departure board. We start getting worried and go the information center, where they tell us no, there are no more trains to Perugia this evening, what we have booked in our ignorance is a train going towards Milan. We stop at a place called Terontola and fromthere we have 10 minutes to catch a bus that will drive the opposite direction for another hour to bring us back to Perugia.

Oh.

OK then,well at least we know why we haven't seen Perugia listed. So we start looking for the Milan train bin.

Finally our train bin number got posted. Jess has the word listed as binore, I can't find a translation for it. It's like the track number you go to.
So we go to it, making sure to punch our tickets this time to validate them..
It seems like everyone is taking this train to Milan this evening.

The train that comes in is filled with sleeper compartments! Not sure where first class is, we ask a gentleman who tells us the other end of the train. (of course)
Walking all the way to the first cpmartment of the train we see the types of compartments you see in a british train. You have an aisle along one side and about 7 or 8 compartments that each seat 6. We nab one and drop down into the seats. THIS is cool. Like the Orient Express or something, very nify.

About 1.2 hour after we should have left, start wondering why we aren't going yet.

People are hanging out the window, so I go out and ask if there is a porblem. Oh no, no problem. They are changing engines. Oh, ok, no porblem... LOLOLOL

Wondering how we are going to make our bus when we are just about an hour late, we finally get going. YEAH!

It slowly moves out, and the first half hours it does nothing but go at a decent clip, then slow down. We finally decided that even if this is an express, they must have to slow down when they are near towns close to Rome. (we prefer that to the possibility of the engine having trouble)

Finally we get going, we know that our stop is about two hurs downt he road, but we still don't know what we are going to do once we get there, if we are an hour late for the bus.

When the conductor comes by we ask, and he starts explaining something abour retardo. OK, now I allow my son to call me a retard, but this guy really has some nerve! After a minute we realize that he is saying the train is oging to be an hour late. Gee, thanks, but what about the bus? After about 5 minutes of retardo, we just shake our heads and say ok, no problem.


We settle in to enjoy the ride. Jess is trying to sleep, but the adrenalin is going crazy in me, I am loving this. Riding in the middle of the night on a train in the middle of Tuscany, not knowing what is going to happen but just accepting that everything will be fine.

Finally the stop before ours the conductor comes back in and tell us something about chef and taxi. Sounds good to me, I donàt care who pays, just get us home.

He walks us personally out of the train and to the care of the station master in Terontola. There is one other gentelman waiting for a taxi too, so between all of us we realize that trenitalia is picking up the tab for the taxi. Yeah!

We wait and wait, a guy from England is there, trying to get elsewhere but he doesn't have our luck of getting the one taxi in town. He doesn't quite get that it doesn't matter if he is willing to pay, he is going to have to hnang out until 4 am when another train will get him to his destination.

Finally we are waved to a waiting van\taxi to be wisked off into the Tuscan night, like people being smuggled somewhere under dead of night.

Hail Italy. I do love it here. If I could just get a fan and some ice. :-)



Note: Italy is so much easier when you know the language.