Thank God We're Home

We woke up early today to go to Ancona, a port city on the east coast. Trains were easy today; we had about a 20 minute layover in Foligno where we picked up another train to Ancona. Upon arrival, we had no idea where the hostel we had booked reservations for was. All we had was the name so we asked information at the train station, and luckily the hostel is about a 2 minute walk from the train station. So we walked with our very heavy backpacks to the hostel (Julie has 2 bags) to find out that they were closed until 4:30pm (it was 1pm when we arrived to the hostel). Having no place to put our bags we decided to grab some pizza at a nearby pizzeria. It looked like a McDonalds with all red and yellow furniture and walls, but the pizza was pretty decent. After pizza we looked for a gelateria since we still had many hours before we could dump our belongings in a room. We walked and walked for this gelato joint. Finally, with backs hurting and those awkward straps on backpacks around our stomachs and chests, we spot a ‘park’ with some benches so we throw off our heavy loads, and lo and behold, a gelateria/cafeteria is right across the street. Julie, Jeanette, and I go get some gelato while Erica watches the bags. We eat the ice cream which is so delicious after hours of traveling. Julie and Jeanette decide to break out the homework and begin reading for class. Erica and I are pigeon watching; it is very interesting to see pigeons fight over food and interact with each other. After a couple minutes of this, I grab my Purgatorio book and begin reading it. After reading one canto I got very sleepy and fell asleep on the park bench. I wake up occasionally to find that Erica is listening to her iPod, Julie has slumped over her knees and got out her North Face to keep warm, and Jeanette is asleep on the end. I nodded off again. We all awake later to find Erica laughing at us; she never fell asleep and has been taking videos and pictures of us because Julie looks dead, Jeanette’s mouth is open the whole time, and I keep shaking. The entire time we all have our sunglasses on, and passerbyers think we’re all asleep, and Erica told us they were pointing and whispering about us asleep on the benches. Finally, it was time to get back to the hostel. We arrive at 4:35pm and its open! So we go in and tell the lady working at the counter that we have a reservation for 4. I did not think ahead at all and didn’t print out any document that said we had made reservations; I wrote down the reservation number, but that was about all. We’re apparently not on the list, but she did have a room left, so that’s where we are right now. Julie, Jeanette, and Erica have all fallen asleep in their beds. I am hoping to find internet because I was able to get on for about 30 seconds before the signal went away, and we still have to contact the university to tell them we’re gone for the weekend. After everyone woke up from their naps, we headed towards dinner since it was about 7pm and we were hungry. So we talked to the man at the hostel downstairs and he told us to get on this ¼ bus. So we get on it thinking it will take us to the centro or city center. Slowly, throughout the bus ride everyone starts to get off until there are only 3 men and us on the bus. We’re in some sketchy neighborhood when the remaining 3 guys get off, and the bus driver tells us that it’s the end of the line and we also need to depart from the bus. Not knowing where we are but having an idea about the area of town we are in, we quickly start backtracking until we are finally lost and ask for directions at a hair salon. A lady working there helps us and tells us to catch a bus further down the road since walking back to our hostel or the center of town is a long walk. In order to get on the bus though you have to buy bus tickets at the Tabaccio shops and he told us that the bus only came about every 30 minutes and we would have better luck walking a little further on down a hill where the bus comes more frequently. We walked a little further on down the hill, but none of us ever saw a Fermata (bus stop) sign. We come to a dead end in an apartment complex, and Jeanette asks this young guy for directions to a bus stop. He was really patient and kind and gave us pretty clear directions to a Fermata. Go down, left, down some more, right, and then straight. We followed those to a T and walked straight for a long time. About the time we had give up hope, we turned a corner and there was a bus station. After all this walking to a restaurant and still having not eaten, we were all starving so when a restaurant was spotted we basically ran towards it and sat down, gobbled up all the bread they gave us. The waiter brought us toasted bread and olive oil because “you look very hungry”. The restaurant had some televisions in it where we made up dialogues for the implausible RAI soap opera on, followed by K-19: The Widowmaker. It was dubbed over in Italian so we continued our fun dialogues until we got the conto (check) and left for home. The trip back to the hostel was nothing in comparison to the previous bus trip. The only incredibly annoying thing was that we waited for about 30 minutes for the bus because on the map it looks like a long walk from the Piazza with the buses to the train station where the hostel is and since we had been walking all night, we were tired of walking. We’re on the bus for about 2 minutes when it comes to the train station; there was absolutely no reason for us to take the bus less than a ¼ mile to the train station especially since we waited for so long to get on it. But we are safely back at the hostel. I took the most wonderful shower here. It was real water pressure and the hot water is evenly dispersed throughout the showerhead, unlike the one in our apartment where all the hot water is in one giant hot drop in the center surrounded by lots of cold water. Erica’s on the phone, Jeanette and Julie are in bed with their eyes closed, and I need to read some more of Purgatorio.

Sept 15: Today we got off to a late start. Erica is one of the hardest people I know to wake up. After we were all awake and dressed, Julie reminded us how cranky she gets when she gets hungry so we stopped at a grocery store down the street for some breakfast: bananas, assorted cookies, kit-kats, and some Ritz crackers. We ate them on the way back to the train station to buy bus tickets for the bus to Sirolo which supposedly has very nice and pretty beaches. We buy the tickets and are nervous that the bus trip to Sirolo is going to end up like the bus trip to the centro the previous night. However, we had learned our lesson and got on the right bus which took us to this little town about 10 miles south of Ancona called Sirolo. The bus drops us off near the park entrance, but we are still really hungry and stop for some pizza and Fanta first; we have decided that the Fanta here has more of an orange taste than in America. After lunch we hike back to the park entrance and see signs for the spiagge (beach) S. Michelle. It’s a 4 something, maybe kilometer walk down the mountain to the beach with lots of hairpin turns. Erica and I decide to take a short cut, which did end up being shorter, but while we waited for Julie and Jeanette to catch up to us, they went a different way and waited for us while lying on the beach, soaking up the sun. After waiting and searching for them for about 30 minutes, Erica and I decide to head down to the beach and hope that they are down there. We look up and down and finally spot them. The beach was gorgeous, and I think we were the only Americans there. We laid out for about 3 hours; Julie and Jeanette got in the water which was pretty cold. When the shade started creeping towards us, we decided it was time to get back up the mountain and started the long and strenuous hike back. Sweaty and just feeling gross we find la fermata and catch the bus back to Ancona. After showering, Erica with paper towels, we decided to get back in the saddle and try to go to the centro for dinner. So we bought tickets for the ¼ bus, again, but this time we asked the bus driver if the bus was going to Piazza Roma because had we not asked the bus probably would have taken us back to Drug Land. The streets in the centro were crowded with people, mainly kids between the ages of 12-18 years. We couldn’t figure it out until we were at a restaurant. First off at the restaurant, there was the cutest little boys with a toy gun playing around; it doesn’t sound cute, but it was. Back to the story, all the waiters and waitresses were wearing Notte Bianca shirts. Notte Bianca is a festival, or series of festivals, celebrating the end of summer and stores are open very late. So it was one big party downtown with a couple of stages and one DJ playing Beat It, Sweet Dreams Are Made of These, and Get Into the Groove. Unfortunately we were all dead tired and wanted to head back to the hostel. So we got back on the bus, but before getting to the hostel, we stopped at the gelateria at the train station. Julie refused to get any after looking for it downtown, Erica got cacao Amsterdam, and I got yogurt and crema all’ouvo, or egg cream. Quite delicious actually. We are back at the hostel getting ready for bed since we have to get up early and be out of the hostel at 9:30am tomorrow and our train leaves around 11am.

Sept 16: Today’s trip was not as well executed as yesterday’s. We woke up on time, were out of the hostel at 9:30am, at the train station at 9:45 waiting for our train at 11:10am to leave for Perugia. Not fully understanding exactly what platform 2ov meant, we got to Binari (platform) 2 right after 11am, and starting searching for our train. We headed up and down the platform and right at 11:10, we noticed 3 platforms over a train leaving for Binari 2 ovest. We watched as our train left the station and as our afternoon diminished as well. The next train didn’t leave for another 2 and a half hours which was just fantastic since we had already been there for an hour and a half. The only silver lining I could find was that at least I was getting some homework done. The train pulls up and we got on, heading towards Foligno, our layover point. In Foligno we had an hour and a half layover. Thank god nothing at all happened to that train. We were all on the verge of just screaming at each other if something else went wrong. Finally we arrived in Perugia; I couldn’t imagine a more welcoming sight. We got off the train and basically ran towards the first bus, so excited to be home. The bus was jammed packed with people, but we were so happy to be home, no one really cared that they no longer had any personal space. To top off the entire trip, right as we got off the bus, it starts pouring down rain. So we hiked back to the apartment in the downpour, and of course, we open the apartment building door and the sun came out. Julie and I decided that we deserved the steak tonight for dinner after such a tumultuous weekend at Ancona.

We thought the weekend adventures were over. Not so much. We get back to the apartment; Julie and I are so ready for the steak its not even funny. So we start to thaw the steak, but we are so ready to eat so we just put the steak on the stove and start to cook it. I move over towards the sink to start boiling water for rice, stand up too quickly, and hit my head on a couple of our one shelve which knocks the shelf and causes both the glass nutella and glass peanut butter containers to shatter on the floor. So we take a break from the steak to clean up nutella and peanut butter. Luckily, after a couple of flips on the steak, we notice that part of it is good to go, so we start sectioning off parts of the meat and just eat as we go. Most of the way through the steak eating, the flimsy counter gives way and the meat goes flying on the floor. Erica calls the 5 second rule, and we continue to eat the meat. Nothing else could go wrong tonight. It could, but after this weekend, I am ready for anything. Pictures, and there are pictures, will come.