I Don't Care What You Say, I'm going to Sorrento!!

Our toughest travel day in Italy was the day we took the train from Sienna to Sorrento.   Up to this point, in the eyes of management,  my language skills had gotten us where we needed to go and what we wanted to eat, drink or do with only a few minor hiccups along the way.   I had, in fact, been hailed as the hero of the Italian crusades.  And then we left Sienna for Sorrento. 

The night before we traveled, I had gone on-line and plotted out our trip from Sienna to Naples, where we would catch the local train -- the Circumvesuviana  -- to Sorrento. We were to take a regional train from Sienna to Chiusi at 10:05, wait in Chiusi for twenty minutes and catch another regional train to Napoli at a cost of about €40/person.  I had checked the schedule innumerable times, making sure that I had properly interpreted the tiny little symbols on the schedule indicating that a particular train:

ran daily

ran only on workdays (which includes Saturday)

ran only on school days (The Feast of St. Barbara? Your guess is as good as mine.)

did not run on Saturday

did not run on Sunday

did not run on either Saturday or Sunday.

I did dry runs on the wording of my request for tickets.  I had it cold.  Dead fucking cold.  I was focused like Kobe in the last two minutes of the fourth.

We were up and showered and packed and dressed early.  I got a cab to get us to the train station by 8:20 -- enough time to have a snack before the train ride. Perfetto!!!!  I went into the ticket office and said, in what I'm sure was perfect Italian -- though I will not swear that the balance of the conversation was either perfect or entirely Italian:

"I want two tickets, one-way, second class, to Napoli on the train that leaves for Chiusi at 10:05 AM, please." 

The ticket seller did not appear to have the slightest interest in what I was saying.  About halfway through my little Italian aria, he swung his computer screen around toward me and, pointing at the screen, said, in Italian, "No. You go now or you go at 1PM."

I had heard that ticket sellers will attempt to sell you up to the more expensive express trains and, because I had studied the schedules extensively the night before, I knew that they were both express trains, so I started to interject, "I looked this up on the Internet and there is a train that . . . "

"No. You go now or you go at 1PM." He was absolutely insistent. He pointed out the window at the train sitting on the track. He held up two fingers. "Due minuti."

He was pretty insistent, as were the fifteen people behind me in line who became very vocal about their personal interest in getting on that train.  But I knew the schedule, dammit!  I wanted tickets for the 10:05 to Chiusi.  I wanted to take the thieving bastard down. 

People were grumbling.  I'm sure someone said, "Americani stupidi!"

The pressure was more than I could stand. Un-Kobe-like, I folded like a startled souffle and bought the tickets at a cost of €75/person, then ran like hell to get Patti out of the cafeteria, grab our bags, run downstairs through the underpass and then upstairs to the track, and then get on the train to . . . wherever.  We made it, but barely.  We stood in the vestibule of the train, sweating, panting, drained like hot sex with an entire car full of passengers staring at us unmoved, unconcerned, impatient and bored, as all commuters are. 

I was no longer Italio-heroic.  I was bathed in abject failure -- failure of language? failure of wills? failure of schedule interpretation skills?  The train ride from Sienna to, as it turned out, Florence, was pleasant enough. It should have been for the money. There were very few stops and we arrived in plenty of time to make our connection.  I grumbled anyway.

And, just when I started to feel better . . . well . . .  You may have heard of the infamous and beloved Italian work stoppage.  When we entered the train station in Florence, there was a notice posted on a flashing sign in the middle of the station that warned that, for a twenty-four hour period, there would be a significant number of delays and cancellations due to a shortage of people who felt like working at the train station that day.

So, we and hundreds of other people stood looking at the departure board like it was a huge crap game.   The words 'in retardo' (delayed) and 'Cancellato' rolled up randomly next to time and city combinations.  Every time another train was cancelled and it wasn't #4517 to Napoli, we'd pump our fists in the air and call for another roll of the dice. We were lucky as hell. As we boarded one of the few trains to roll out of the train station in Florence that morning, I had begun to conclude that the ornery ticket seller knew something we did not. Grazie, signore.  We were both heroes.

So, we rolled happily, gratefully, though somewhat expensively, to Napoli -- one of the ugliest, dirtiest, most graffiti-encrusted crapholes I have ever seen --  the Compton of Italy.  It is the only place in Italy during two long trips and one short one that I have ever felt in danger.  Turns out the rest of southern Italy is much more beautiful and pleasant than Naples.  But some things became immediately clear about the south. It is noisier, dryer, dirtier, LOUDER and less well organized than the north.

Now, as a German boy . . .

I am so German, sometimes it almost hurts.  When I was a cigarette smoker, which I gratefully am no longer ( Hey, can I bum a smoke?), I used to occasionally find myself in a half-lit room, sitting in a position where I could catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and I would raise one eyebrow, turn my head to a more profile position, then flip the cigarette over so that I was holding it palm-up, between my thumb and forefinger, take a hit on the cigarette, blow the smoke out through my nose and ask myself, out loud:
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

"You still have a family in Germany, nicht var?"

It always startled me.  Sometimes so much that I would have little flashbacks over the course of the next couple days that would send a ripple of real fear up my back.

 
 . . . I know that, while Germans might have some less than pleasant qualities as a people (I'm not going to list them here.  We all know them.  Hmmm.  Then again, I wonder if I'm backing off of this  too soon because what I say about Germans as a "people," must in fact apply to me.  That is the nature of a generalization and I cannot therefore find true objectivity until I embrace them, verbalize them, test them, and come to terms with them.

1.  Germans . . . we . . . are more egocentric than many other ethnicities.

2.  We Germans believe we are better than anyone else, even our fellow Germans.

( I believe that I am better than most other people, but not because I'm German, because they're assholes.  Most people are just mean.)

3.  Germans are mean.  Deep in our bellies, we Germans love confrontation.

4.  We have a propensity for anal retentiveness, OCD, and over-grooming.

5. Altruism is not a recognized philosophy among Germans.  They are an utterly selfish folk.  At least that's what they're saying in Greece.

6.  We have a low tolerance for many things, but for ignorance, in particular.

While part of this little exercise is to cop to everything, I must insist, not that I am free of those horrid qualities, but that I have done everything in my power as a man to repress that part of my nature and re-train -- to the extent that humans can re-train their nature -- my responses through constant practice, biofeedback (That's what I call it when, during a discussion, my wife stands up, raises her arm over her head, and screams, "Zig Heil!"), and years of cognitive therapy.

On the other hand, the inherent qualities that mutate into the the aforesaid problematic behaviors, can be harnessed for the benefit of mankind:

1.  Germans can organize anything from a sock drawer to an awesome army.  We appreciate order.

2.  If you need rules, rules for anything, we got you covered.

3.  Quality craftsmanship (as defined by measurable qualities, such as precision, symmetry, and a tight fit) is paramount to us (and here I must include the Swiss, who are, as you might know, our more serious  tick-tock-tick,  obsessive, older brothers).  Nothing gives us a warmer flush of comfort than having stayed within the lines.

4.  We're very clean. 

The Germans have clearly exerted their influence on their neighbors in Europe over the years -- sometimes without their consent, and I think that there may be reason to believe that German influence might just have rendered the people of northern Italy cleaner, more prosperous, and better organized, if somewhat more reserved, than the people of the south.  Just sayin'.

When we got to the Garibaldi Station in Naples, we made our way to the area from which departs the small train that goes along the coast to Sorrento and inland to other places. It is called the Circumvesuviano, because it goes around Mt. Vesuvius. The next train to Sorrento was leaving within minutes, so I bought our tickets; we dragged our luggage through the too narrow little gates, and headed down to the designated track. The graffiti-covered  drek-wagon was just arriving.  Patti wanted me to ask someone something.  She always wanted me to ask someone something.  But I felt sure.  So, again, we dragged our luggage and our obviously foreign butts into the middle of the train, where we found ourselves surrounded by almost entirely Arabic-speaking people.  While there are a lot of North Africans in southern Italy, the concentration of them on that train seemed odd, but not a cause for panic.  I think Patti had doubts about my leadership skills on this mission, but kept them to herself from that point on.


On the big map over the door, I counted the number of stops to Sorrento and we sat our tired selves down for the ride. When we got to a place where we had determined there were five stations remaining, the train stopped at a place called Poggio-blah- blah-blah. The group of Arabic-speaking men sitting across from us stood up, approached us, and the apparent leader asked, "Where are you going?"

I answered, "Sorrento." In unison, they shook their heads. "No."

I said, stupidly, "Yes, we are."

They said, insistently, "No, you are not."

I was worried for a moment what they might be implying.  And then, the train engine turned off. 

We were at the end of the line in a North African ghetto.  The train was not going anywhere soon and Sorrento was the other way.  It was like a scene from the "Out of Towners."   We sat  quietly in the train station for one hour, legs crossed, arms folded, heads down, then re-boarded the train and headed for Sorrento.  Patti said nothing.  She didn't need to.