How Not to Miss a Bus

Hello there, friends. So basically I’ve been in Italy for a few days and it’s been A LITTLE CRAZY. Let me explain:

So we went to Italy, me and Kiwi Guy. I already had a flight to Bologna, and he booked the same one, which was pretty lovely. We had quite the adventure, however. First off, our shuttle from the hostel to the airport was 30 minutes late. We were still okay, but that’s a bit nerve wracking, especially when you’ve figured just enough time for you to be there two hours early. Luckily, we were the last stop on the shuttle and we made it to the airport in enough time. I may or may not have fallen asleep on the shuttle even though I technically got plenty of sleep.

When we arrived at the airport, we kept failing at getting in lines. We would always pick the line that just didn’t move, or people would cut in front of us, or a million other things. It was terrible. I mean it was fine, but just annoying when all you want to do is go to your gate. Which we got to with enough time. But STILL. Things just weren’t going smoothly, ever. And then our flight was like half an hour late, which again was okay, but just made everything more annoying.

We had similar issues at passport control once we landed (we need to pick the RIGHT LINE, dammit) but eventually we made it through. Now all we had to do was find our hotel. Which was NOT EASY. Because OH BY THE WAY, Google Maps was completely down. It’s sad and a little scary how much I rely on that app, but I would probably be dead without it, honestly. We eventually figured out how to get to our place, took a LOT of screenshots, and then set off on a bus that led us to the central bus station. I was not at all annoyed at the lady who did not move over to let someone sit next to her even though the bus was completely stuffed with people who were standing.

We arrived at the bus station, and then we had to figure out where the hell to catch the bus that we knew we were supposed to take to our hotel. We asked about five people, who kept pointing us in the direction of different bus stops, until we EVENTUALLY FOUND THE BUS. HOW EXCITING. We made it to the hotel, which turned out to be the CUTEST little place – more of a bed and breakfast than anything – run by this lovely old Italian woman who spoke next to no English, so we had a fun time miming things to each other. We checked in, rested for an hour or so, and then grabbed dinner at a place that the Italian woman somehow recommended to us. It wasn’t a particularly special place, but I still had the best cheese ravioli I’ve ever had in my life, because Italy. We split a pint of beer, and then went back to the hotel to drink a bottle of wine and watch a movie (we made it through barely any wine and just the first half of the movie due to exhaustion).

The next morning, we got free breakfast, which was probably the best free breakfast I’ve ever had. There were a bazillion amazingly flavored pastries (I had this brilliant pistachio croissant thing), and yogurt and cereal and they made you cappuccinos and there was plenty of pre-wrapped stuff that you could steal for later. And they were all just SO sweet there. I’m in love with Italians.

The plan was for us to each write for a bit (he is much more of a writer than I am: think multiple novels, self-published, lives off his earnings, UGH) and then head off to the bus station to catch our FlixBus to La Spezia, which is the closest you can get to our next destination. We caught a bus to the station, which was free because it was Saturday apparently?

We were a little early for our bus, and we talked to the FlixBus guys who said our bus would be twenty-five minutes late, arriving at 2:15 instead of 1:50. Okay, no big deal. We sat in the waiting area, looking up every couple minutes for the bus. WELL. At about 2:05, I looked up and saw two FlixBuses there, so we headed out. The one that was ours wasn’t boarding (we were an intermediate stop: usually there is only a crowd when it’s the starting point) but the driver was inside the bus, as were a ton of people. We waved to him, and clearly gestured that we needed to get on the bus. He waved back. And then started backing out of his spot. We just stood there. Like. Um, is he actually leaving without us?

As he drove down the parking lot, we just stood there for a second in shock. Like, fuck fuck fuck what do we do? And then I was like, whelp. I guess we’re running! So we ran. We ran all the way to the end of the parking lot (quite a distance at a bus terminal), where thank GOD the traffic was a bit backed up getting out. We waved and screamed at the driver until he FINALLY rolled his eyes and let us on. There was no putting the luggage under the bus, or even really checking our tickets, or letting us sit down without him speeding off. BUT WE MADE IT. BAM.

Three hours later, we arrived at the La Spezia stop, which as it turned out was just a bus stop in the middle of nowhere in front of an abandoned-looking parking lot. There were no other bus stops in sight, even though my (now finally working) Google Maps was telling us to take a bus to get to the train station we had to go to. We started asking the couple people who had just gotten off the bus, and they vaguely gestured in the direction of…something. They also barely spoke English, so there was that. We started to go in that direction, noticed a bus stop in the other direction, and headed towards that. Naturally, there was no information about the busses we actually wanted, so again, we asked the old man standing there, who of course spoke nearly no English. FUN FACT (that you’ve probably gathered by now): moreso than virtually every other country I’ve been to so far, VERY FEW Italians speak English. They may speak a few words, but not nearly as much as people in the rest of Europe. However, they are also mostly incredibly warm and helpful, and understand Spanish if you’re desperate. ANYWAY.

Old man tells us to wait for the next bus, and we go to get on the bus and the driver tells us (in Italian, again) that he’s NOT heading to the train station. So we go to get off the bus and he’s like NO NO NO we are going to the center and then you can get another bus to the train station! So we are like, whelp, that’s not what our phones said but we have no idea how else to go, so SURE. The very exciting thing was that he said this bus was free. I’m not sure if this was true or he was just taking pity on us.

The bus finally left the stop like, ten minutes later, and by this time we were getting quite tired from our adventures, and we also had no idea where to get off. But the driver was nice, and as we were approaching another bus awhile later, told us that he was going to let us off, and we needed to go get on that bus and it would take us to the train station. So that’s what we did, and it almost left without us but he honked at it until we got on. And then we couldn’t figure out how to pay so we had yet another free bus ride that day. The third, to be exact.

We figured out where to get off the bus using our handy dandy GPS (nothing was being announced or anything) and we were FINALLY AT THE LA SPEZIA STATION OMG. Now all we had to do was buy train tickets, validate them, and get on the train. Naturally, the validator was being stupid and we literally needed to ask someone for help because we couldn’t figure out how to do it (apparently you stick it in the right side of a slot and slide it over to the left so it will stamp it. There were NO INSTRUCTIONS). But after two stops on the train, we were at our stop, a little town in Cinque Terre (pronounced “chinka-terra”) called Manarola.

By this time, it was dark; we knew that our hotel (another bed and breakfast type place: this is not an area with hostels or regular hotels) was super close, but we COULDN’T FIND IT. We eventually went into a little corner store where I very nearly broke an entire shelf of wine bottles with my giant backpack; the cashier and Kiwi Guy kind of saved the day on that one by rescuing all of them after I had knocked them down, before they could hit the ground. Ugh. Anyway, the cashier lady wasn’t too keen on us after this so when Kiwi Guy asked her for directions, she just kind of shrugged at us. Luckily, another Italian woman overheard us and told us it was literally right next door, through a gate. Which Cashier Lady DEFINITELY KNEW, she was just mad at me and didn’t want to help us. Whoops.

So then we go into the gate, and ring the bell to our place, and there’s no answer. OF COURSE. So we ring the bell again, and again. Knock a bit. No answer. OH, and the lights are off. REALLY?

But guys, it’s okay, because a couple minutes later, from four floors up, an old man yells something out the window in Italian (but we figured out that it meant just a moment) and came and let us in. He was perfectly lovely, our room was perfect, and everything was great.

We got dinner down the road (literally DOWN: Cinque Terre is SUPER HILLY and has parts that go virtually straight up and down) and split a salad and a seafood platter. I learned that octopus tastes exactly like tuna, and that even though biting the heads off giant shrimp and ripping their legs off is disgusting, it makes them taste better. Then we watched two episodes of Black Mirror because apparently I hate myself and went to bed.

Today was…nothing like I expected. Let me start out by giving you a little run-down of why I even wanted to come here: basically, so many people I met said this was their absolute favorite part of Italy, and you can stay for a couple days and do some nice hikes between towns and it’s so cute and wonderful and lovely…Yeah. Okay. So, it is definitely cute and wonderful and lovely, but the shit weather today (rain and cold, bleh) did not help matters. We thought it would be nice to walk along the coast to get to the next town (and that’s the easiest trail), but after we got a little ways in, it turns out it was shut down. Okay, no problem. There are a million trails, but really only one other main one leading to the next town. No problem! How hard could it be?

As it turns out, VERY. We had to walk pretty much straight uphill for about a kilometer and a half, which took forever even though it’s not THAT far, technically. The paths were rough, and lots of the steps were falling apart and stuff. Doesn’t make for the easiest hiking. We were dying. And then after about, oh I don’t know, the hour and a half that this took, we had to walk for another hour and a half on slightly less crazy terrain, but still pretty tiring. And then we had to walk down to get to the next town, which is exhausting in itself. It took us at least three hours, and we realized after that the mountain trail that we had taken specifically between these two towns was pretty much the hardest trail that exists in Cinque Terra. Go figure.

We were pretty much dead and just needed to sit for a bit and have lunch, so after not too much exploring and photo-taking, we sat down for a late lunch and a cappuccino apiece. There was no way we were going to hike anymore after this (my legs were shaking and THIS CLOSE to giving out entirely) so we decided to get a train all the way to the last, and biggest, town, Monterosso. We ran to the train because we thought we were going to miss it, but we didn’t YAY good story. And then we got here. Which is where I’m at now. We walked around a bit, but we were so cold and tired, and most things are closed anyway. Still full from lunch, we stopped in a little bar and split a bottle of wine, talked for a bit, and decided to do some of, well, this. Writing and stuff.

But you guys, this wine? It’s like strawberry flavored. And a bit bubbly. It’s tasty, but the important thing is that it reminds me of MANECHEVITZ. I don’t know how to spell it and haven’t thought about it in years, but seriously. It’s called Fragolino Rosso and it’s Italian and I don’t know what else to say other than that. Oh, except they served us peanuts and olives and these green things with stems that I don’t know what they are but all of them were tasty and came with our wine. God, I love Italy.

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