Zee Germans, 10 Year Old Kids, and Words of Wisdom from Brian and Michael.

This post covers the events from the night of June 16th through June 17th.

So when we left off, we were arriving at the platform at the train station. Now the way the trip was planned was the first three nights in the hostel, then for the last night, nothing. It was far cheaper to fly out of Forli back to London Stansted then from Rome to Stansted. But that meant that we would have to make our way somehow to Forli from Rome over night via the night train, the bus, and our feet. Here we go.

I’ll give you a run down first, then we’ll go into some detail. First we caught a train to from the Termini station to Tiburtina station. From there, we caught our night train to Bologna. From Bologna we took a train to the Forli train station. From there, we went to the airport. Caught our flight then flew London Stansted. From London, we caught a train back to Cambridge. And the rest is history.

So catching the train to Tiburtina was problem. We waited a little bit for the night train to bologna to arrive. When it did, we power walked like crazy to get to our cabin because we kept thinking we were going to get left. The train aisles of the train were so cramped. I could barely fit through the halls, two definitely would not fit. Now I ordered a couchette ticket. A little more expensive than a seat, but much more desirable. So when I go to my room, it took me forever to open the door. When I did, it was pitch black inside. Then I saw the old guy sleeping on one of the bottom bunks. We accidentally woke him up. So he sits up and just looks at me. While I’m still trying to get my bearings, he starts talking to me in Italian and kept pointing. I didn’t know what he was trying to tell me, but he kept going. This went on for quite a while. Eventually he just stood up and turned on the light. Oh. Mi Scusi. We moved our stuff to the top bunks and sat there kinda disoriented. There’s a lot going on, and it is so humid and hot. I’m covered in sweat. Then he turned off the light and we sat there in the dark. Interesting. This is pretty terrible. But thankfully, there was a mistake, and we moved rooms and it ended up being Me, Jennifer, Laura, and Kacie in one couchette room. Much nicer. SO the way the room is set up is there are two sets of beds on each side of the “room” stacked on top of one another.

First order of business, open the window. This helped with the heat a little bit. Now time to get settled. The beds were semi-comfortable. We were given these paper thin slippers. They pretty much are the worst things ever. I kept them. Nice. The open window did cause a problem however. So the night trains go through tunnels. Now I’m not sure the exact physics of it, but when the train goes through the tunnel, there is some sort of a pressure imbalance. It hurts the ears, badly. It was fun to watch the expressions on the girl’s faces though.

Even though everything was less desirable, it was hot, it was late, it was loud and bumpy, I was having an absolutely amazing time. It was so fun. Miserable times = great experiences.

On the train I didn’t get much sleep but I didn’t care. So we arrived in Bologna at some time around 4:00 am and we all stagger off the train. Now we sit and wait until 5:00 am-ish to catch our next train from Bologna to Forli. Fortunately we were able to get on early and relax.

Here come the Germans. So a couple of Germans get on the train, all wearing tight pink shirts and short blue jeans shorts and straw hats. No harm thus far. But then, more Germans get on, and they are pretty rowdy. Now becoming irritating. Before we leave the station, they thought it would be a brilliant idea to bust out into song. It was so loud and awful. One would start, and they all would chime in. None of us could get any sleep, and there was nothing we could do because there were like 12 of them. We were all getting really pissed. The general trend was that they would sing at every stop our train made, which was quite often. One of their favorite songs involved mass chanting of “homosexual.” I couldn’t tell if they were drunk, gay, or both. Finally this Italian guy finally couldn’t handle it anymore, got up, and chewed them all out in Italian. It was hilarious. They all shut up pretty quickly. But after he went to sit back down, they’d all start singing away again. Thankfully we were only on the train for around 50 minutes. They sang the whole time. Thus far I’ve probably slept a total of 30 minutes, probably less.

Now Michael says some really funny things. As soon as we get off the train, he looks over at me and says, “Man I hope to God that the train derails and none of the Germans survive.” Wow, harsh but hilarious.

By the time we get to Forli, it’s around 5:45 am. Our next destination is the Forli airport. But how do we get there? So we walked around for a bit looking for a way there. There’s no one around to ask and everything is in Italian, so it’s pretty difficult. We really don’t know what to do. We eventually find this bus schedule that we think will take us to the airport, but the only problem is, the next bus comes at 7:45, two hours from now. Decision time. We looked at the map and estimated how far the airport really was. It looked like its less than 2 kilometers away, so we voted and decided to walk it. We took a picture of the map for reference. 2 kilometers? We’ll be there in like 20 minutes. Wrong.

So we’re walking and following all the signs for what seemed like 2 kilometers. It’s 6 in the morning and everyone who drives by is like, “What the heck is that group of 12 Americans doing?” We all felt kinda out of place. After about 20 minutes, we decided to ask this cyclist sitting down for confirmation in our interpretation of the direction. We were going the right way he said. Good, reassurance. But then he was like only 4 more kilometers. WHAT. ARE YOU SERIOUS. Rebecca and I looked at each other and kinda laughed. Don’t tell anyone right away we thought, just keep walking and maybe no one will notice. Wrong.

Around the 3rd kilometer, our luggage started really hurting. But eventually we made it there an hour later and covered in sweat. We cleaned up in the bathrooms and took naps until it was time to check in. We eventually boarded our plane around 10:15.

So now for the flight. Seating in Ryan Air is not pre-arranged. It’s first come first serve, like Southwest. I’m sitting, waiting to leave until this group of like 40 boys and girls about 10 years of age get on the plane. Holy crap. They were everywhere. The kid next to me wouldn’t sit still. He was too busy shouting to his friend Tony or popping bags that he would find. He kept banging on his chair and getting up to run around. One of his favorite things to do was to make up words to the tune of Mr. Sandman. God, grant me serenity now. I bit my tongue and just dealt with it. But 2 hours of it is more than enough. After we got off the plane, I was talking to Bryan and Michael.

Bryan: “It would almost be worth it to sacrifice my own life if could just take a couple of those kids with me.”

Michael: “I just wanted to wait outside the door and slap each kid one by one as they came out.”

Haha.

This time, customs was no problem. I got in relatively easily. After we got our luggage, we had some lunch at the cafeteria, then caught our train back to Cambridge at around 2:20 pm. Almost there. The final challenge was riding our bikes back home to Cherry Hinton. I’m running on no sleep from the night train, German train, and miscreant children flight. But it felt good to pedal instead of walk.

Pretty much everyone went straight home, took a shower, and took long naps. I had some dinner, called my dad on Father’s day, did some homework, and then went to bed. It’s been a long day, but so fun.