Last week took me and Johann – along with a friend – to Bologna. Our primary reason for going was to eat, which we did morning, noon and night, two plates apiece. As you might expect, we also drank. Quite excessively, I might add, often kicking off the day with a pre-lunch double pour of a local red paired with something equally unnecessary, like an assortment of pasticcini or a two-pound meat and cheese plate. It was a nice holiday – relaxing and indulgent – not unlike going to an all-inclusive resort but without the stress of getting into a bathing suit every morning.
Long story short, we lived large last week. Not wanting our trip to end, Johann and I kept up our food and drink repertoire even on the day we departed, killing a bottle over a late lunch and then sipping our way to a 7:33 high-speed train back to Venice.
I wouldn’t say we were drunk when the two of us stumbled onto the platform in our matching backpacks that evening, but, then again, I wouldn’t say we weren’t. If pressed, I would say we were “fine,” which we all know is the word you use to describe yourself when other, more responsible, people look at you sideways for doing something that they themselves aren’t doing, such as “having fun” or “screaming indoors.”
“I’m fine,” is what people say when they had one too many and are now doing high-kicks on the way to Gate 19. “I’m fine,” is what people say when they ask their companions, unprompted, what animal they would want to be and then balk at any answer other than “snow leopard.” “I’m fine” is what someone says when they try to flirt their way into an extra bread basket even though the waiter has already agreed to bring another. “I’m fine” is a big clue that you are not at all fine and if you really were you wouldn’t feel the need to broadcast it.
This is a long way of saying that our little trio did not have our shit together when we approached our assigned seats and found three people already sitting in them. Johann, the most easy going of the bunch and also the most “fine”, if you will, suggested we find empty seats elsewhere in the train and just make do.
“No,” I argued. “Because then we’d have to deal with people who get on the train and find us sitting in their seats.”
Our friend agreed. “Let’s just ask them to move,” she said.
Before either of us could respond, she walked up to the couple, tapped them on the shoulder and told them in both Italian and English that they were sitting in our seats. Had she needed to, she could have also explained in Finnish, Swedish, French and German. This woman, I’ll have you know, is fine in every sense of the word.
“We’re not,” the seated couple argued, and produced a pair of tickets to prove it.
All five of us exchanged a confused look and then simultaneously landed on the next thought, which was “Well which of us is on the wrong train?”
Turns out, none of us were on the wrong train. Our tickets – all five of them – were identical: same train line, number, carriage and seats.
“They oversold the train?” Johann asked.
“We should ask a conductor what to do,” our friend said, looking around for an authority figure to settle this dispute.
I, too, had already started scouting for a conductor’s cap, though no so much for a solution. I couldn’t care less about getting a seat. I, in true American fashion, was already hoping for a refund – and possibly a credit for a future trip as well, just for the trouble. I mean, what kind of operation are they running? How dare they overbook a high-speed business train? That’s not right! I am a white lady who has traveled the world. I know my passenger rights. I deserve a seat and a WiFi passcode and a charging station. So help me God, if I don’t get what I paid for, I will pull the emergency brake. They will pay me just to leave quietly, and then they will pay me to come back.
Our friend looked at our tickets again.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, smiling at the couple as she pulled me and Johann into the vestibule between the cars. “Oh my God,” she repeated. “These tickets are for the wrong date!”
She pointed to the return journey, which was listed as May 25 instead of April 25. My mouth hung open. It was my fault, as I was the one who booked the tickets. I couldn’t believe I messed up something so simple, a task I’ve performed at least a hundred times in the past few years. In addition to be embarrassed, I was also a little bit worried. While regional trains in Italy rarely conduct inspections and allow ticket transfers, the high-speed lines are much more strict. Depending on the conductor, we might have to buy new tickets on the spot or even pay a fine. It’s not an exorbitant cost, but still, I would feel obligated to cover it myself since I was the one who screwed it up. Imagine how many bottles of wine I could buy instead!
“OK,” I said, clapping my hands together. “New plan: We know nothing. This is our first and last time to Italy! We don’t live in Venice. We hardly ever travel. In fact, we barely speak English.”
“Mita?” our friend said with a wink, playing along already.
“SHE SAID SHE HARDLY SPEAKS ENGLISH????” Johann asked.
We both shot him the universal look for “Shut up.” Then, just for good measure, we said it to him in as many languages as we could come up with on the spot, which for her was three and for me amounted to saying something like, “Halt deine mouth. Honestly!”
Several minutes had passed with the three of us hovering in between the train cars when Johann raised his hand.
“Can I say something?” he asked.
I peeked around the corner. “What?” I asked.
“Is there a restaurant car?”
I nodded. “That’s a good idea,” I said. “Let’s check.”
“Check for what?” our friend asked.
“A restaurant car,” I answered.
Just then, as if on cue, the door opened and a monstrous snack car being pushed by an Italian teenager appeared. The train took a curve at 150km/hour which sent the cart pitching and heaving as the young woman tried to ram it through a malfunctioning motion-activated door.
“Excuse me,” Johann said as the girl as steadied a pot of hot coffee and several hundred paper cups. “Is there a restaurant car?”
She looked at him with the tired eyes of a woman who was 15 years into a 25-to-life sentence. “I am the restaurant,” she said, motioning to her cart. “Do you want a sandwich?”
“No, thank you,” Johann demurred.
“Peanuts?” she asked.
Johann shook his head.
“Biscotti?” she asked, scanning her merchandise, bound and determined to find him a snack.
“No, thank you,” he said. “I’ve already eaten.”
I elbowed him in the ribs. The woman sighed, no doubt wondering why a man who has already eaten is looking for a restaurant and why he isn’t sitting in a seat and, probably, why his girlfriend is hitting him in public.
“I’ve already eaten,” I mimicked in my best egghead voice, as the woman crashed into the next car. “You just made such a scene in that restaurant.”
We stayed huddled in the vestibule for the next twenty minutes waiting for a conductor to check our tickets and, best case scenario, deem us all idiots.
“Do you think we should just go sit down?” Johann asked.
“Maybe,” I replied. “They usually check by now but I don’t see anyone.”
“It’s a holiday,” our friend reminded us. “Maybe no one is on duty.”
That could have very well been true. April 25 is Liberation Day, which marks the fall of Mussolini’s Italian Social Republic and the end of the Nazi occupation in Italy.
“Well let’s try to find some seats,” I said, motioning to the next car, which looked slightly less packed than the one we had come from. Johann peeked through the window just in time to see The Restaurant rolling back in our direction, the Italian woman now pulling her panini backwards through the door and using her elbow to release the lock. We waved weakly, like three people who don’t quite understand the intricacies of train travel… or chairs.
We waited for her to pass before going through the door ourselves, a single line of three slightly intoxicated tourists doing our best to blend in to a mostly silent train. We found a row of four seats and peeled off like the Blue Angles, sitting down wordlessly and without ceremony, never once checking a ticket number or arguing over who got the window as most everyone who enters a train does. In other words, we could not have been more obvious about not belonging there. Not like the other people around us cared. It was 8:30 on a Friday night that coincided with a national holiday. Everyone else seemed just as fine as we were.
In the end, the conductor never came around and no one else tried to claim the seats. As we got off the train in Venice that night, our friend pointed out that, technically speaking, our return tickets from Bologna were still good. We could, theoretically, do it all again on May 25 for $0. And you know what? That would be absolutely fine with me.
What a wonderful memory! This sounds like a scene right out of a Lucille Ball show only she would have gotten caught. Lol!
Oh that’s high praise. I love Lucy… At one point, I even said to Johann, “Well even if I have to pay, I still have the story.” If I had a nickel for every time I said “I am the restaurant,” since then, I’d have broken even by now.
Hey, you got your free trip after all! Yay!
OMG – yes! You’re so right. I got the trip AND the credit. HA. I’m the worst.