italy - all that running

running for the train - although running for something is stressful, i think that you can't go on a trip in your mid 20s and not have some type of running involved. i bet you type A people will disagree.

running related story #1 - when we got to the rome airport we had to take a train to rome termini the main rome train station in order to catch our train to venice. it is not immediately obviously where to catch the train at the airport. luckily 2 of maybe the 10 italian words i learned included "where?" and "train". also luckily, the woman i asked spoke the international language of pointing.

we find the train and we manage to maneuver the ticket machines. but which one is our train? and isn't there something we're supposed to do with the tickets before we get on the train? damn. why didn't i pay closer attention to those videos that richard sent me? i think i'm supposed to stick my ticket into the yellow machine but i'm not sure so i just do it. it can't hurt, right? so then we run towards the train. crap. there's two of them. which is it?! so we run to one where we see a lot of people and we go up to someone who looks like a conductor or something. "rome termini??" i say. he points to the other train. crap! run! we're on the train. we make it. phew.

running related story #2 - we leave from venice to florence but somehow we get the train time wrong. we get to the train station and realize that we have way less time than we think. i buy tickets for dennis and myself because he bought mine to venice. debbie says, "what seats did you guys pick?" picking seats?? we didn't pick seats on the way to venice and it was fine. screw that! let's just get tickets and go. run run run.

so we get on the train and go to the right car and just sit anywhere. people start getting on the train and some guys tell us we're in their seats. ok fine we'll move. there are tons of seats available so we'll just go sit somewhere else. next stop. more people get on. i'm in some guy's seat and i think some of our luggage is on someone else's seat. one of the guys says, "incroyable!" whoops. ok we'll pick seats next time and sit in the correct ones.

running related story #3 - this is definitely the most epic of all the running. we get to the train station and we look at the sign. crap! the train is leaving in a few minutes. we all go to the ticket machines but they're pretty crowded. so i decided that maybe richard should buy all the tickets and the rest of us will run for it with the luggage. it'll be pretty easy for richard to catch up to us once he gets the tickets because we'll take his luggage for him.

so we make a run for it. and let me tell you. this ain't no small train station. the train is way far from the main part of the station and ticket machines. so we are running for our lives. by the time we're like 2/3s of the way there, i'm kind of hoping that we'll just see the train leave so then we can at least give up on the running. i mean, i' not trying to miss the train. while it's still here, i'm still running for my life. priscilla's suitcase is huge and apparently when richard catches up to us, he tries to take it from her to help her and the whole thing just topples over. some blips int he road but we'll keep going.

there's a couple who's in front of us trying to catch the same train. we see them make it the train and i think, "yay! we're almost there, too!" but wait. why aren't they getting on? i see the man hit the train doors. they had closed and were not letting anyone on. it's over. we missed it. defeat.

running related story #4 - so we arrive at the airport half an hour after we had wanted to. we had intended to arrive earlier because debbie, priscilla and i were going to see if we could switch our plane tickets. but there's someone in front of us. and they're taking forever. we finally get to speak to her and she tells us we have to take care of it in america. if she changes it for us now it'll cost over $200. uh yeah. screw that. either way though, she says i need to go because i'm going to miss my flight. crap. so we rush to get our boarding passes. the guys are waiting in the security line. my boarding slip prints. "you have checked in too late" or something like that. wtf? so we go to the counter and we tell them that our friends are saving us a spot in the security line so they help us and gives us our boarding passes along with the following words, "please run." and that is how we end our trip.