Mosaics

The missteps of travel are as entertaining as anything else, I suppose, and in the ways we learn about ourselves.

Humble Train Station

And this was immediately apparent in Rome, where once we arrived and sailed through Immigration and Customs with our bags and plopped ourselves at an outside bench we had no idea how to proceed. The directions I had written down for this next leg (airport to hotel) made absolutely no sense. We finally were directed to the train into town, which when we boarded was very full and the only place to sit was near the WC (water closet/toilet).

It stunk to high heaven and we dreaded the door being slid open by brave souls too desperate to wait.  We wanted to beg them not to; we wondered if this was like Eurail and would it smell like this?  And was all of Italy this filthy and depressing? My eyes watered. We had to breathe through our mouths. It was horrible.

Graffiti is Everywhere in Italy

There! Our stop is just ahead. We charged off the train relieved to be rid of it and found ourselves in the seediest part of town imaginable, dragging our suitcase on wobbly wheels up and down until we found the hotel which, I've got to say, had absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to the website or trip advisor recommendations. It was a stinky smelly dump. And there we sat after being awake 20 hours, checking in and out in a matter of minutes, hungry, with our butts on our suitcases at the curb, having no idea what to do about any of it on a Sunday morning. Welcome to Rome. It looked like East Oakland.

By now you know we found a way out of that mess through the kindness of strangers who recommended a much more suitable hotel across town and that Rome is quite charming and beautiful. The experience built our confidence for the next challenges which were coming. And during the first couple of days I've got to say we mastered how to feed ourselves and get around town and that its better to buy all day metro tickets so you don't have to hunt down a Tobacco shop during their siesta hours when they close up and you are stranded. We acted less like confused tourists and learned how to read Italian menus. We figured out how to ask 'How much ... the direct route?' in Italian to the cabbies and studied the map so we knew where they were taking us. But for the life of us we couldn't figure out how to convert money.

Train and Bus Stations Interconnect

Oh we could get cash from the ATM. We could see the banks. They were everywhere. To go inside, you pushed a call button, got approval from the bank receptionist which slid open a door to a glass chamber that fit one person, stepped inside, the door would swoosh shut and then the inner door would open. All that to be told they did not exchange money and we were in the wrong place. After three or four tries we found it, the right kind of bank that looked like other banks ... and the transaction took 20 minutes of paperwork, a xerox of our passport and driver's licenses and a signature of authenticity before we could buy lunch. I've got to admit all that work did yield a better exchange rate but we know why banks are always empty. Holy cow.

Rick Steve's travel book (Italy) comes to mind, something from his Introduction: "In many ways, spending more money only builds a thicker wall between you and what you came to see. Europe is a cultural carnival and, time after time, you'll find that its best acts are free and the best seats are the cheap ones."  By this, he didn't mean trains. 

Gorgeous Trains

The Eurail trip was posh, I mean first class was beautiful! The trains were comfortable with new seats and meticulously clean bathrooms. Not so in the train stations: none of the bathrooms had toilet seats, I mean not even hinges for them, and some were the his-and-hers point and shoot type that were impossibly tricky to negotiate. (You really do put your feet on the anti skid areas but heaven help you trying not to rest your butt on the wall.)

Traveling in Style

The flexi pass on the super saver plan was great as long as you traveled together and kept paperwork up to date and ready for the conductor. We bought a 5 day pass and saved a bundle on the per-ticket rate. We used it on excursions from Rome to Florence, Florence to Pistole, Pistole to Lucca, Lucca to Pisa, Pisa to Florence, and Florence to Venice (and from London to Paris, but that was a separate country and separate charge). It was romantic to travel anywhere on the spur of the moment so long as there is room on the train, We discovered the Express train and the small fee upgrade was well worth it. And that you can't outsmart the train schedule and it doesn't save time at all to catch a connector from Florence to Pistole and sit THERE for 90 minutes to catch the train to Lucca we should have taken in the first place.

Pisa Train Station
'Watch Your Step!'

By the time we hit London and its challenging hotel, it was no big deal. The hotel was in the midst of a complete and total remodel, maybe 300 boxes outside stacked up, workers in and out of the narrow doorway with planks of wood and paint. We had to dodge people to get to the desk, and there were guests complaining about fumes and wanting different rooms. The room was smaller than my dormitory in college with enough room for a twin bed, and this had squeezed in a double and smelled of paint and perfume. In another room we could approach the bed but couldn't envision anyplace to open suitcases and sit down at the same time. And again we met nice people moving hotels to somewhere more suitable, and we hopped in a cab and followed them over.  It was like that the whole way.

It was refreshing to learn we can adapt and function in an unfamiliar place, and enjoy being in an environment intense and new. Probably what most surprised me was that some of the best memories weren't in the museums and churches, but in the mosaic of the trip itself as we walked the streets and talked to the people there.  Again, Rick Steves comes to mind: "Travel is intensified living - maximum thrills per minute. Travel is freedom. It's recess, and we need it."

We have to agree.