(For parts 1 and 2 see Venice and Padua below).
This is an unpleasant story to recount as I am still scarred by the memory. In addition, I’ve recited it so many times to those immediately surrounding me that I have no desire to describe it again. That being said, however, I must force myself to recount it once more, as my Italy blog wouldn’t be complete without this chronicle. Just know that I gain little pleasure in doing so.
We were in Padua only for the afternoon and we had planned to take a train in the evening back to Rome. Things were looking swell as we checked the schedule and saw that we could take an evening train around 7 p.m. and transfer in Bologna around 9:30 p.m.
Everything seemed to be going to plan. We hopped on the train in Padua, no problem. When we heard the whining of the steel and the train screeching to a hault, we got off at the Bologna station – recall my unpleasant experience last time I found myself there. Since our connecting train was of a type we had never heard of before, the “TrenOK,” and I didn’t want a repeat of the Florence to Bologna incident, we decided to double check the validity of our pass at the counter. We figured, worst case scenario, our general passes wouldn’t work and we would have to buy a ticket.
When we got up to the counter, we were informed that the TrenOK was not OK.
“Well, we’ll just buy a ticket then.”
“No ticket.”
“What do you mean no ticket?”
“No ticket for you.”
Eventually, we worked out that this is a special kind of train that you have reserve over the internet like two weeks in advance. Well shoot, I forgot to pack both my portable internet and my time machine.
“When’s the next train to Rome?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
Fortunately, “tomorrow” for the Italians means anything after midnight and the next train was like at 2 in the morning. Not so fortunately, the Bologna train station is not exactly the kind of place you want to be hanging out for five hours in the middle of the night. Recall my travel book said, “solo travelers should not be in the train station in Bologna at night.” Good thing I wasn’t solo this time. Seeing our desperation, the lady told us, though not in so many words, that if there was some space on the train, we could always try and bribe the train conductor.
So, we waited for the train to see what the conductor would do for us.
Bad sign #1 – the train conductor turned out to be a woman. This, in my opinion meant she was more likely to be honest and less likely to sympathize with two little helpless girls. (Deny this all you like but my Sicily experience will prove my point).
Bad sign #2 – when the train arrived, the police were escorting some kid off the train who didn’t have a ticket and got caught. So the conductor couldn’t make an example of him and an exception for us, especially in the face of the police officers.
Well, we asked her anyway, and she flat out refused us in seconds without even batting an eyelash. Looks like it’s going to be a fun next five hours in a creepy train station.
I have to skip over some more drama if I’m to ever to get through this story. It involved me looking for a bathroom, all the bathrooms, even the McDonalds bathroom at the train station, closing early, and me yelling at an old Italian guy and also banging on some windows. I had to “go” right before we rolled into Bologna, but I just thought, I don’t want to miss the stop, I’ll go on the next train. Bad idea. Don’t ever assume there actually will be a next train.
Anyway, this quest for a restroom landed us at the McDonald’s across the street, which, fortunately, was open until 4 a.m. If I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again...McDonald’s is amazing! It saves me every single time. And it seems each successive drama it rescues me from is greater and more urgent than the last. (If you're keeping track that’s the third McDonald’s just in Bologna I’ve mentioned...they’re everywhere).
The rest of the evening waiting for the train turned out to be wonderfully pleasant. We got some grub and I busted out the cards and taught Henrietta how to play rummy. Nobody bugged us for the rest of our time there.
When go time rolled around, we went back over to the train station and after fending off some men, we stepped onto the platform and watched the train come in. Things were looking up.
Now, if you thought this story was about being in Bologna in the middle of the night, it’s not. All that just serves to set up the real story. Up to this point, I hadn’t considered this a bad train experience. Sure, there were some obstacles, but it turned out fine and we ended up having a blast at McDonalds playing cards and wasting time.
First let me explain the anatomy of the incoming train. Like the train with the coffee incident, this one had a skinny corridor on one side and all compartments lining the other side. This corridor is a single-file hallway just wide enough for passengers to walk though in order to find a compartment. The compartments have six seats total, three facing three. The seats are able to slide together to form three beds. Now, add to the mix, a whole lot of people.
When we got onto the train, all the compartments were closed with sleeping riders inside and so everyone was forced to squeeze into the hallway. We were packed together in that skinny, long hall space that was never meant to carry passengers. I had to take off my backpack because the hall wasn’t wide enough for me to wear it and face perpendicular to the length of the hall, nor could I wear it while turned toward the length of the hall as all that precious length was needed to squeeze everyone in. So I had to put it at my feet.
How do I take you to that train? Imagine, if you will, sardines in a can. Imagine stocks of asparagus rubber-banded together in the produce section. But the asparagus squeezed against me to my right wasn’t an ordinary vegetable, it was a drunk guy with an open can of beer in one hand and a joint in the other. This man, who had hair like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, no exaggeration, was totally wasted, mumbling and muttering, and we were literally on top of each other due to the crowd situation. There was absolutely nothing I could do to escape this guy. I couldn’t move to another part of the train because it was physically impossible to get past anyone, and there was no use in trying to find a conductor for the same reason. And, it was a SIX HOUR train ride! Six hours in this exhausting human heat! Six hours of smelly, dirty drunk guy rubbing up against me! Six hours standing in these conditions!
Everyone in the hall was starting to have a similar realization and was getting angry that each compartment had three people laying down. If the loungers would only sit up, it would double the number of seats in each compartment. But even seeing the dire situation in the hall, nobody wanted to give up their comfortable bed. It was a horrible display of human selfishness and I have not experienced its equal before or since.
The compartment directly in front us had the curtains drawn and the door locked. I knocked on the door...no answer. I knocked again, louder. Then several of us knocked together, still nothing. I took a peek in the crack through the curtains and saw, of course, three people comfortably sprawled out on three beds. We knocked again. I could see that they were awake and aware of the situation, they just didn’t want to have to sit up. This sight angered me so much that I knocked so hard I almost broke the glass. They simply drew the curtains, thus closing the crack that I was peeking through.
I finally gave up on the situation and stopped knocking. But when I took my focus away from the compartment, I realized that drunk guy next to me was going through my backpack that was between my legs.
“What are you doing?” I screamed at him.
But my screams didn’t stop him from looking through my bag. He responded in very slurred and broken Italian. He proceeded to tell me that he didn’t have a ticket and he was looking in my bag for mine. Then he kept looking! I yelled at him again, but he just kept telling me he was looking for a ticket. I moved my bag away as much as I could to finally make him stop. But that was all I could do. There was no point in continuing to censure him as he was too drunk to understand. In fact he was so out of it that I couldn’t even really be mad at him for it. Plus I still couldn’t move to get away. So there we were, the guy just tried to rob me, but I was still standing next to him same as before. The only thing that changed was the he lit his joint.
Well, we spent about another hour in this situation, when finally, the conductor was forcing his way through the crowd and making people get out of their sleeping positions and return the three beds into six seats.
This meant that some seats started to open up and were immediately seized upon. But it’s not like the hallway was emptying out. It was still incredibly squished. Even doubling the amount of seats didn’t make much of a difference in space. When the compartment to my right, the one in front of the drunk guy, opened up, Henrietta and I didn’t take it. There was a mother and a little girl on our left. The little girl was obviously very scared so we offered them the seat instead. But just after they had settled in, the drunk guy realized he just missed out on some empty seats, so he thrashed his way inside the compartment. The mother was like “oh hell no, you get away from my little girl.” But he fought to stay inside the compartment and ended up trying to sit on some dude’s lap. He spilled beer all over everyone and the people inside finally got up collectively and physically forced him out of the car and back at my side. Fantastic!
Meanwhile, the conductor had knocked on the door of the compartment in front of us. Once again, the people inside ignored the knocking and the conductor had to get out a special key to force his way in. There were three guys inside he made sit up, thus opening up some sits directly in front of us. But there was no way Henrietta and I were going to sit inside that compartment with the jerks that ignored the knocking and closed the curtain in front of us. So, some other guys took the seats instead. Then, drunk guy, who was again a little too slow, threw himself in front of me and tried to go into this compartment which was already filled. He tried, yet again, to sit on somebody’s lap and spilt what was left of his beer all over the guys who had just taken the seats. The prospect of an alcohol shower and smelly drunk guy sitting on them sent the newly seated fleeing from the compartment. So, drunk guy actually scored a seat. But the guys who were originally in the compartment weren’t willing to give up their seats nor did they want him in there, so they yelled and screamed at him. Keep in mind this is all squarely in front of me. Before I knew it, the biggest of them, Luigi I found out later, grabbed this drunk guy by the neck and started screaming and cursing in his face.
Since the conductor had just passed by to open that compartment, he was still in view. So, I scream and beckon him to get over here right now! I thought Luigi might kill him. But the conductor looks at me and tells me he’s busy. I scream at him again, hoping he would realize from my persistence that this is an emergency, but he just casually says no. He can’t see what is going on inside the compartment from down the hall. I try a third time with even more persistence and he ignores me completely. Finally, Luigi pops his head out and demands the conductor come over, so he does.
Luigi explains the situation and I tell the conductor that this get was going through my stuff, etc. etc. So, he gets pulled out of the compartment and escorted away. Then, three seats are open in there again. These guys, who we’ve now been forced to talk to due to the situation, insist we go inside and sit. Clearly they didn’t know that mine was the hand that knocked and the eye the peeked inside their compartment. Begrudgingly, Henrietta and I take them up on their offer.
We had some strange conversation with these guys. Luigi is from Sicily, to which I said “mafia.” He didn’t like that much, but I didn’t care. Francesco, sitting across from me, Luigi’s son, was absolutely gorgeous! And another young kid, Alessandro, their friend, told us he was going to be a priest. This was all very unbelievable considering his lack of charity in ignoring the knocks and the fact that he was continually smoking in the non-smoking compartment. Still, they ended up being kind of fun to talk to. We had about four and a half hours left on the ride, and fortunately, we were no longer standing. But, the compartment was terribly uncomfortable and according to my watch/compass/alarm clock/thermometer from Radio Shack, it was 105 degrees inside that compartment, with six people breathing the same air and absolutely no ventilation.
Still, there were some folks who had to stand the entire rest of the train ride and we did get seats. So my situation was better than some.
When I heard the click of the lock to our apartment door at 7 in the morning, it was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. We were exhausted but goal number one was take a shower and get as much drunken stench and stranger sweat off of me as possible. Goal number two was to was sleep. Finally, my head hit the pillow and I was home in my beautiful, safe, bed. We made it. Amen.
