Ok can I just ask one thing? What is with me and not being able to have even one normal journey from one place to another? You know what I’m saying… Just a calm, relaxed, catch-the-train-from-here, and then the train is on time so there is no-trouble-with-the-connection, and so on and so forth. I feel like I am pursued with drama, complications and unforeseen circumstances wherever I go. Sometimes my fault, other times emphatically not!
I am, of course, referring to something specific: my trip to Sardinia on the weekend. Or perhaps I should refer to it as My Odyssey to Sardinia, cos that’s pretty much what it felt like.
Let me take you back to last Thursday, when the journey began. Basically on Tuesday night, I think it was, the clouds opened above northern Italy and dumped I don’t know how much snow on the country. Metres and metres, the place was in chaos. This snow was still well and truly present on Thursday. So the question was, would the trains be going to Rome? (I always fly to Sardinia from the airport in Rome.) I arrived at the train station in an advanced state of nervousness, since I really didn’t know what I was going to do if the trains weren’t going, I had to get to Rome somehow or I was going to miss my flight.
Snow falling in Macerata
View from the department of law
Thus far, however, my fears were groundless. The train rolled up (on time!! believe it or not) and I was soon comfortably seated watching the white countryside roll by. I only had one connection to make, at a station called Fabriano, so I thought this was gonna be a sweet trip for once.
Views from the train window
Boy was I wrong. About an hour later, just after about a million school kids had jumped on the train, the train unaccountably stopped. In the middle of nowhere. Not a station in sight. No one has a clue what is going on of course, least of all me, since it is all happening in Italian. After some minutes, the conductor walks into the carriage to break the news that the train has managed to run over (and unfortunately also kill) a dog. Now I’m sorry to all the dog-lovers out there, but I was basically like, “Ok cool so now we know what the matter is can we just get GOING please?? I’m going to miss my CONNECTION!!” My wishes were not respected, due to the fact that the dog in its death had managed to break something, I have no idea what, some cable or something. So the train was stationary for another half hour or something, during which I was forced to listen to the extremely immature conversation of three school boys sitting next to and across from me. I mean I can’t say I’m 100% sure of what they were saying, but I’m fairly certain they were discussing exactly how the dog would have been killed by the train; i.e. would it have been sliced vertically or horizontally… blah blah blah, totally disgusting I know. Imagine it with the hand gestures!! Then you’ll know how I felt. At least they found it amusing :o)
Moving on, finally the train steamed slowly to the next station, some random country stop, where we all had to descend and wait for the next train (in minus 60 degrees of ice, frost and snow. Obviously by the time this train came I had hopelessly missed my connection at Fabriano, with the result that I hate to wait at Fabriano for the next train to take me to Foligno, where I had to wait AGAIN, and then catch another train to Rome. When I finally made it to Rome, despite major hypothermia and extensive frostbite, I was in excellent health, and extremely happy to note that I could still catch the final bus to the airport (and would not have to spend another night on the streets of Rome).
You would think at this point that all my troubles were over, wouldn’t you? You would be so wrong! Man they hadn’t even started. So I spent another sleepless night at the airport and was bright as a button on Friday morning, ready to fly out to Cagliari. The flight itself was smooth and uneventful. Then I arrived at Cagliari airport. I dashed out of the plane and ran to the station, wanting to catch the train that left at 10am, so I wouldn’t have to wait for the next one which went over an hour later. Problem #1: ticket machine didn’t work. Problem #2: No sign of intelligent life anywhere (by intelligent life I mean railway staff). Problem #3: From what I could tell, the train going to Oristano was cancelled. I nearly died! I was like “somebody please HEEEELP!!” So anyway, this random cleaner comes up to me and a bunch of other people who wanted to go to Oristano, and says “Listen, catch the train to Cagliari (as in the city centre, 5 minutes from the airport) and you’ll defs be able to catch either a bus or train to Oristano from there.” So we actually listened to him (I have no idea why) and caught the train to Cagliari, to discover that no, there were no trains or buses going to Oristano until the afternoon, because there was a massive strike happening.
I mean, come on! Blizzards, dead dogs, strikes?? I was starting to wonder what on earth I had done in this life or a former one to deserve all this. Basically I had reached the limit of my endurance, so I called Ann Yvonne and begged her to pick me up. I felt dreadful, but what could I do?? And being the lovely person she is, she came and drove me safely all the way to her house, where once again I spent a perfectly enchanting weekend with some of my favourite people in the whole world. More details on the perfectly enchanting weekend will appear in the next post, I’m thinking it’s best that I stop this one here. Feel free to share any similar travel stories in your comments; I would love to know that I’m not the only person these things happen to… :)
