Day One in Italy

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Day 1: Day from hell.
(Please keep in mind that Day one was not the most pleasant experience, I look back and laugh at it now, but at the time I was in tears. No joke.)

I’d like to start this story of Italy by clearing up a few rumors.

Rumor number 1: Everyone over in Europe speaks English so it’s so easy to get around.
False. Or maybe they were all lying and actually laughing to themselves at how humorous it is to stress out the American girl with too much luggage. Correction: WAY too much luggage.

Rumor number 2: The train system is so easy to figure out.
This probably would be easy if I spoke Italian, or if the ticket people spoke English (Although I’m not holding a grudge against either parties, they don’t expect me to speak Italian (well, even though they did) but I didn’t expect them to speak English since I was in their country and all). I had already gone on two different trains, one from the airport to Rome, and then one from Rome to Florence, and was on my third train from Florence to my final destination Lucca when the rude, cranky ticket lady who checks the tickets after the train has left loudly pointed out that I didn’t get my ticket “stamped”. This was news to me, but I hadn’t gotten caught so far on the other two trains so I was actually pretty proud of myself, and I just faked that I didn’t speak English and pretended to use sign language, so she gave up and kept checking other tickets.
Let’s back up a little, because I know my mother wouldn’t want me to leave out the fun times we shared at the airport. I started crying at home actually, and the tears flowed at a pretty constant rate at various intervals throughout the whole day. Good thing I’m a girl and can get away with that stuff. I don’t think Dad would be too happy talking to a bawling son complaining about how heavy his luggage is.
So, the airport was busy as usual. Mom talked it up with some army people, some looking about 12 years old, and I keep my nervousness inside of me. That is until we got to the gate, then I started getting really nervous, tears and all. Luckily we were sitting next to Joanna, this older Italian woman who in broken English kept telling me to be happy and explore like her sons do and that she would be my new mother on the plane. She did make me feel a little better. I got on the first flight I tried, which I wasn’t expecting to do. More tears. Then mom walked me all the way up to the front of the line to get on the plane, so I felt and looked probably like a little middle school girl crying and all, but it’s okay, it’s not like I knew anyone except Joanna. I won’t forget the last bit of advice mom gave me before leaving: “don’t sit on the lavatory seats on the plane.” Thanks mom, I followed through with your advice.
So, I get on the plane, passing up the ridiculous first class (remind me to sign up for first class on the way home). I end up sitting next to some rather large, old, fat man, who turned to me after a few minutes of sitting to ask if I was traveling to Italy for pleasure. Of course, this was way too soon after just leaving my mom and her great advice, so I burst into tears again. Ha, I’m sure that wasn’t what he was expecting, and he’s probably telling his wife the story about the over-emotional college opera girl on the plane next to him as you read this. The plane ride was long, and cramped. The food was okay, sort of like a Lean Cuisine minus the Lean part. Also, they had a great selection of movies (Fool’s Gold and the Bucket List). But OF COURSE, I’m in the seat with the broken entertainment part, so my headset wouldn’t work, therefore I couldn’t hear the movies. I spent a good two hours of the flight trying to learn how to read lips though, hopefully I can keep working on that talent.
After the plane landed, I tried to make my way through the Rome airport. I ran into Joanne again, she checked up to make sure I wasn’t still crying (at this point I wasn’t). Next I met this young kid, he just graduated high school and was meeting the rest of his class on some European trip they were taking, but he had gotten a different ticket than the others. Funny thing is, this kid from Niceville, Flordia is actually going to LSU next year to be a music major. Small, small world. So we chatted up about LSU and everything he will expect next year while waiting an hour for our luggage to finally arrive.
The luggage arrival. This was the first moment that I realized I over-packed. I should have picked up on the signs; How my carry-on alone gave me back aches, how I knocked over about 3 people trying to haul my big suitcase off the luggage train thing at the airport, how I could barely maneuver all three of my bags combined because it weighed more than I did. I’m sure I have been great entertainment for half the people in Italy.
After I got my luggage, made an emotional call to Dad, tried to get Internet but failed, the whole while sweating like crazy because I’m nervous AND they don’t use air-conditioning in their airport (I felt just like I was back home again though, it helped with the homesickness), after all that I made my way to try to find the train. I ran into this eager Italian worker who was convincing me I had to spend 30 euros to take some shuttle to the airport, when I’m standing next to a sign saying it’s like 10 euros to take the train to Rome. This argument went on for a good 20 minutes, until I figured out he was the shuttle bus driver and he was just trying to sucker me into paying him so he could get business. So I make my way to the train station in the airport, finding about no one that spoke great English. I held up the ticket line for 10 minutes trying to explain to the ticket guy where I was going, but he just kept laughing because he didn’t understand anything I was saying. Luckily though we worked it out through a lot of pointing and maps and he was able to give me my first two tickets for my first two trains.
Train number one: I couldn’t lift my luggage up the stairs to the train, so I had two homosexual drag queen guys lift it up for me, and then I couldn’t fit it into a compartment very well, so I ended up sitting on it, making me seem about 3 feet taller than everyone on the train. After getting to Rome, I struggled getting my luggage off, but then I met a really nice Romanian girl who helped me figure out the train system and where to find my next train. Without her help, I wouldn’t have made the train, and probably would have just ended up staying in Rome for a while.
Train number two: Once again, had to get help getting my luggage up the stairs, and I received various comments such as “Are you sure you packed everything?” haha, very funny. My luggage got stuck in between the aisles as I was trying to go down, so me and this girl tried to pry it out while all the strong guys just looked on like nothing was happening, and they didn’t even offer help while we practically broke our backs putting it up on the rack above. (Note to reader, while doing this I put my ticket up above on the rack too, because this will be the cause of much stress later on). This train was nicer, it was the kind where two seats face two more seats and there is a table in the middle. So, I sat down in my seat, sweating like crazy, in front of some older man reading a paper who looked like a grown up Harry Potter. He wasn’t very friendly so I tried to catch some sleep, having no idea when my stop would be. After sleeping a little (I’m exhausted by this point by the way) I meet this 24 year old guy(girl) (He was very feminine looking), who sat down across from me once old Harry Potter left. He was really nice, lives in Switzerland, but originally from Brazil. We were chatting it up when the ticketmaster comes around looking for everyone’s tickets. Where was my ticket? Well, it was up on the rack, but of course I didn’t know that. So I’m tearing everything apart looking for it, and I start sweating, but luckily my new friend told the guy in Italian that I misplaced it but not to worry I would find it, so he left me be and continued checking other people’s tickets. I did eventually find it, and felt like a retard. Lucky I had that friend there though because the intercom person only announced the stops in Italian, and I would have missed my stop if he hadn’t pointed out that it was my stop.
Train number 3: This is where mini-break down number 3 starts to happen. I get off the second train with this American couple and they ask where I’m going, and then give me a lot of grief about my luggage (as if I hadn’t heard that one before), and then gave me more grief about not really knowing how to get to Lucca. Clearly I knew I was there to catch a train, but they just couldn’t believe I hadn’t figured it out ahead of time which train or already gotten my ticket. Well, get over it, that is what the whole trip has been like so far, and you giving me grief about it isn’t going to change it. (To go against my rumor correction number two, yes the trains are a little difficult, but if I made it, anyone can, and it wasn’t too hard to take the time to find a train you needed when you got there, it wasn’t always necessary to do it in advance) So I wait in line for a ticket, have a non-English speaking ticket agent, get on the train, and then call Dad with another breakdown. At this point I had been awake over 24 hours, was exhausted, and just wanted to go home. But I kept trucking, and got yelled at by cranky ticket lady for not getting my ticket stamped.
I finally made it to the Lucca train station. (By the way, the train rides are beautiful. The country is so pretty and rural, it looks like something out of a book) I contacted my friend who is also doing the opera program and who has been staying in the Lucca hostel for a week, and he tells me to get a taxi to the hostel which isn’t far. Wow, those Italian car drivers are crazy. I thought we were going to die like 20 times on the ride, and it was only a 5 minutes ride. Dad, you would so proud of my driving skills compared to this guys, trust me.
The hostel is nice. I have never stayed in a hostel before, but the people are really nice that work here. It was weird sharing another room with 7 other girls, none of who speak English, but we all went to sleep at the same time so it worked out. Speaking of sleep, this whole jet-lag thing sucks. And David wouldn’t let me go to sleep once I got there, just so I got on the right schedule, so it was the longest day of my life.
For the rest of the day, David showed me around Lucca. It is such an interesting little town. It is completely enclosed by walls, so there aren’t many cars driving around. The streets are all really narrow and if you look at a map of the city you would think it’s a maze. Luckily, David knew his way around, which blew my mind because it seems impossible, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out. I ate some genuine Italian pizza, it was pretty good, and then later on at night I tried some gelato, also good. The only downfall is the city is a little boring. Not any nightlife really, lots of shops and stuff during the day though. At night the first night we did go see some high school choir that was visiting from Illinois. Ha, that was funny. (not to be mean, they just weren’t that good), but it was good entertainment.
We get to move into our apartment today, and then the others will join us on Sunday. I’m nervous about the program, but I’m putting 100% into it, and I’m going to make the best out of it. I’m sure it will help the 5 weeks go by fast. We plan on taking many excursions on the weekends, top of the list is to visit Cinque Terre because I have heard from EVERYONE how amazing and beautiful it is. So far, day two we have just been relaxing around the hostel.

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