Today we woke up and decided to take a morning trip to Pisa. I wanted to see the small city as well as the quirky little tower that won’t stand up straight. It started out nice and dandy as we walked about 30 minutes to the tower from the train station in sunny weather and with the cool breeze. By the time we got there, the cool breeze was still there, and if you were standing in shade you were fine, but suddenly the nice sun decided to be a little bitch and burn. It was pretty scorching so we decided, “ok lets take a few pics and head back, since we had explored much of the city on the way there.” As we walked back, hopping from curb to curb, in order to follow the shade, we finally came to the train station and bought our one-ways back to Florence.
The Tables Turn
So we wait, and wait. Train seems to be delayed 7 minutes, no biggie. We are at our platform along with a few others and a British couple our age. While we are sitting there, William is reading something on his iphone and I am staring at the departures screen and stare at the same words that have been scrolling down the bottom for about 10 minutes. Unable to read Italian, I didn’t put in the effort to try to decipher what I thought was just useless information. Finally, I noticed the word ‘cancellation.’ So I think to myself, Oh crap our train must have gotten cancelled, but I don’t panic or even tell William because I figure it must not be the one we are waiting for at the moment if William hasn’t said anything. Another word I notice is “nacionalidad.” Strange, cancellation and national in the same sentence and I turn to William and ask, “what is that message talking about?” He reads it and comes to the same conclusion, “they must have cancelled our train, oh well let’s wait for the next one”, which is what we had to do this morning on our way to Pisa. HEADS UP: If you are in ITALIA and you notice that some trains are being “cancelled” don’t leave your city. Keep reading to find out why.
Within seconds, (I have really good instincts) I feel that something is not right. I realize that the iphone is distracting William and continue to try to translate the rest of the message, as I am focusing on it. I realize that something important is happening across the nation, that’s about all I can make of it, but good enough and as I’m about to take the iphone away and express my concern, a large man starts yelling at the British couple (not in a mean way) in Italian that the train is cancelled, some more stuff in Italian, and my favorite phrase he used to describe our situation: “train is KAPUT! You get? TRAIN IS KAPUT!!!!! NACIONALIDAD, T-R-A-I-N I-S K-A-P-U-T!!!” The British girl starts freaking out trying to communicate with this man who obviously is very annoyed by her and her high pitch voice. He cringes and yells the same things he’s been yelling while she stupidly does what she’s been doing. [Seriously, she looked like a chicken with her head cut off.] As this goes on me and William watch in total amusement until he says one word that makes us freeze, “Strike.” “Nacionalidad Strike.” Ok so one, and then two words that make us freeze.
Funny thing is, is that William had read about this before we left. As part of our extensive research, William approached me one day and said, “alright I think we’re totally ready. I even read what to do when the trains go on strike.” I laughed. So immediately after hearing the word strike, I asked William, “What do we do?” William obviously didn’t read anything that helpful. We go back to the main part of the station and look at the board and notice that every single departure now reads, “cancelled.” How lovely. I watch the British couple, well just the girl, go into sheer panic mode and convince her boyfriend that they must leave the train station, which reminded me of my dad. If he were here, before I even went to Europe, I’d have all sorts of Emergency info typed up onto a word doc, duplicated, laminated, and discretely placed in my purse telling me what to do. In case of a strike, it would read – similar to what this girl was thinking – “in case of strike, quickly proceed out of station, hold possessions close by, immediately take taxi out of town. Proceed far, far away, for a violent riot may occur, in which it would be your best interest to avoid.” So while the couple used their valuable pounds to take them to safety, I decided to man it through any riots, which did not occur.
Instead, people left annoyed, sat hopelessly, and I saw an old, Italian lady cry. Can you guess what I did? a) get angry b) get confused c) get hungry d) all of the above.
The answer is D, but in a very particular order. First, I got super confused. I stayed calm and looked at the board. I noticed that the only train still running was to the Pisa airport, so I asked William if we should try to fly back to Florence. He looked hesitant. Then I asked about buses – there are none. Lastly, I wondered about a taxi, but it was over an hour drive and I’d have to pay both ways for the driver and rather be stuck in Pisa. Next, we became hungry. Instead of strictly sticking to Italian food like we’ve been doing, we went to McDonalds. I guess it was a comforting thing because I usually avoid McDonalds at all costs. While I got a 6 piece, William got The Big Mac, and we paid 40 cents for our ketchup?!?!?! Third, I got angry. We all knew that was coming. I went into my “American- superior – arrogant – this would never happen in America mode”, and this NEVER happens, I'm usually the one saying, "ok calm down, not everything can be like it is in America". It didn’t last long though. Other Americans also seemed to do this, but we all kept it on the down low. We approached an American man and asked him what he knew, because all the TVs were playing the same dumb cell phone commercial on repeat instead of the news. He told us that he stood in line for information and found out there will be a train, 5 hours later, at 6 that will be the one and only train out of Pisa straight to Florence. We were happy, but very scared because we were both pretty sure it would be very ugly. Sadly, at this time we also remembered naively watching CNN world one night in Paris while the tourists were abandoned at the train stations in Spain during their strike and thinking that it would never be us.
William tried to convince me to go and explore more of Pisa, but I just had this feeling that we shouldn’t leave the station. I told William, “let’s just go sit on the platform where the train will be leaving from and wait, and gather up the courage we will need to fight our way onto the train.” He agreed. So we waited, then we decided to go to information and see if there were any updates. After waiting in line the woman confirmed what the American man had told us and we returned to our bench on the platform. Two hours later, our board now flashed a departure time. It showed that there was 5 minutes before a train arrived to go to Florence. I was shocked! What??? But the train wasn’t supposed to come for another 3.5 hours. I was so confused, as the train came and people ran to second class, I grabbed William’s hand and jumped onto first class, being the first ones on, avoiding the crowd, and grabbing us some wonderful, cushion-ey seats in the air conditioned den. I figured we’d have to find a way onto this train, one way or another, and I did. No one even came to check our tickets! My first time in first class!
We quickly returned to Florence, overjoyed that we happened to be on the platform when this surprise train came. I skipped off the train, only to see hundreds of people waiting hopelessly in the Florence train station to reach their final destinations. My smile turned to a frown and I immediately felt bad for the poor souls who would have to wait until who knows when.
Dear Italy,
Please get it together. I do not think it is right that people cannot rely on your only affordable mode of transportation. I saw old grandmas sad because they couldn’t attend their granddaughters’ weddings, children who were feeling the heat waves of your park-less cities, people scared that they wouldn’t get home in time to take their medications, and foreign tourists who were missing their flights on very expensive vacations. Yes, I understand these things “just happen,” but obviously for a reason: something is not right. It is your responsibility to help the people and workers of your country and if your trains continue randomly going on strikes, it will only hurt you when the thousands of tourists return home and tell everyone that vacation to Italy is not worth it when you spend half of it at a train station.
Yours truly,
Disgruntled tourist: Neeti Prasad
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